Pivot - Apple and Epic go to trial and Friend of Pivot Senator Amy Klobuchar

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about Apple going to trial with Epic over its choice to kick Fortnite out of the app store. They also discuss the upcoming Facebook Oversight Board decision on whether to uphold the ban on Donald Trump. Then in Friend of Pivot, we're joined by US Senator Amy Klobuchar to talk about the future of antitrust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We're going to talk about it, obviously, on Thursday because I think it's Thursday at 9, I believe. So we'll have an ability to discuss this. But I want your bet right now. Right now. My bet? Your bet on whether they're going to keep him off or on. They're ability to discuss this. But I want your bet right now. Right now. My bet? Your bet on whether they're going to keep him off or on. They're going to remain banned. My bet is that Facebook will live up to its roots of not showing any regard for the Commonwealth

and pretending that they're the town square and wrapped himself in this bullshit First Amendment cloak and come up with some sort of conditional blah-blah about him returning because they think they can sell more Nissan ads. I think that they'll decide to kind of slowly let him back on. Slowly. This is the Facebook Oversight Board. They are independent of Facebook. Oh, God.

I'm supposed to say that. Facebook Oversight Board. Jesus Christ. I got in a fight with one of them yesterday because they won't give me... I texted one of the journalists on it and they're like, you shouldn't be reaching out to our board members. I'm like, he's a journalist. They're just like... You shouldn't be reaching out? The people who run the Oversight Board PR are just like Facebook itself. It's really amazing. They are a different PR group, but they're exactly the same. The Facebook Oversight Board, that's like when I

was the political action director for the Potrero Hill Democrats, and I talked myself into believing I had relevance and realized I was just around a bunch of other people desperate for relevance. It's hard for me to imagine something with less relevance than the Facebook Oversight Board. In any case, I agree with you. I think they're going to let them back on. I do. Really? I think so. And then we'll have to endure Ben Shapiro and Candace Owen crowing, et cetera, et cetera. I think you're going to let them on. I do. And do you think that's good or bad? I think it's an international board, and so they don't have quite the same. They're going to try to use the example of what if

Facebook decided to take off if this is an awful precedent. I'm like, it's not. It's this one guy who keeps breaking the rules. Like, I don't know why it's a precedent. Like, when someone murders someone, it's not a precedent for murder necessarily. I just think they're going to use it, as you're right, as a big old cloak of other stuff that has no relevance to one single person who misuses the platforms. Thank you. Yeah. No, this has almost as much impact and relevance as when I sit down and have a serious discussion

on how to alter my 10-year-old's behavior. It's like, it makes me feel better that I'm actually, I think I have some control over this thing called my son. Yeah. And then the next day, it's like, wait, didn't we have a conversation about that? Oh, speaking of children, you know, I i was in my back in my front yard i was washing down some some winter stuff winter dust off my house there's a lot of pollen could you be more of a lesbian would you go to home depot and get one of those huge like tractor trailers to put shit on it

no i was just washing things down and and uh clara was out in the yard because she likes when i do that and she was we were watering the plants and stuff. And two guys go by and they go, oh, my God, it's you. That's the angel, the golden child. And huge fans, huge fans live in the neighborhood, neighbors apparently, and asked how you were. And it was lovely. It was a lovely encounter. Oh, God.

I know. That is nice. I like when that happens. They were like, where's Gigantor? And it's lovely. It was a lovely encounter. Oh, my God. I know. That is nice. I like when that happens. They were like, where's Gigantor? And it's like characters. They're like, oh, look. Even I'm sick of us and I love us. We should move back to the Facebook Oversight Board.

Scott, they're not sick of us. Foss. I'm telling you. They love us. Seriously, this Facebook Oversight Board, it's going to have the effectiveness of the UN with, I don't know, the charm of the League of Nations. I mean, it's just, Jesus Christ. It's going to be 20% more effective than the League of Nations. All right. So that's going to be our bet, and we'll see what happens. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised that they're going to do. They're not. It's too much of an international board for them to do anything

that is actually following the rules of Facebook. Anyway, the other thing, speaking of irrelevance, Verizon is selling Yahoo and AOL to a private equity firm called Apollo. You know Apollo, run by Leon Black, who got into some trouble with the Jeffrey Epstein situation. It's for $5 billion. Scott, what does this say? Several AOL people wrote me saying, it looks like you were right back then when you called this a ridiculous sham. And I got in a lot of trouble from Tim Armstrong and the Verizon CEO at the time. So what do we think about this? So just some disclosures.

I invested with Apollo and Gannett. I like Gannett. I like local newspapers and journalism and all that good stuff. So I know those guys. And Tim Armstrong is one of my investors. Okay. So having said all of that, and by the way, I haven't spoken to anybody regarding any of this,

this never made any sense. Sort of AT&T, telcos adventures in media just hasn't worked. Verticalization is really powerful, but when your company is basically the mother of all tails wagging the dog, the tail and the dog here are these incredible recurring revenue firms called telcos that have amazing businesses. And then you look at 5G, which is super exciting. And no one has really, the big tech has not figured out, big tech has sort of decided with all the lobbyists and the investments and kind of stealing the ground that the telcos have made, they haven't started disrupting that business, if you will. And all these guys thought, we'll go vertical into content.

But nobody buys AT&T or Verizon to get Yahoo or HBO. They just never really took seriously the notion of trying to integrate them and create a source of differentiation. And they're all basically trying to sell them. And so- Well, AT&T seems more committed and Comcast has certainly worked out. They've owned NBC and the rest of it for a long time. And it's not been a- That's actually a fair point. So would you say Comcast?

Yeah, that's a good point. They went vertical and maybe you could argue that's working. Although I wouldn't- But they're sort of in adjacent businesses. It's, you know what I mean? They have, you can see their, not necessarily synergies,

but that they do understand content. They do have some passing knowledge of content. So I like the CMO of Verizon. I've known him for a while. And he asked me to speak at one of their big town halls with all the marketers. And I said, stop wasting time in media. Or they did one of these pre-calls. Basically, pre-calls when I'm speaking somewhere is to see just how fucking crazy I'm going

to be and if they should cancel. And I said, I'm going to say, you should just focus on 5G, your entire marketing strategy. They came up with all this stuff we should market to disenfranchised communities. I'm like, no, your entire marketing campaign should be three things, 5G, 5G, and 5G. Everyone's excited about getting their shit done faster. And I said, you should get out of media. And then what do you know? So you're like, stick to your knitting. Oh, okay. And then the next day I get one of those.

We have decided to reformat the discussion and we'll have you at a later time. I get a lot of those. They wanted both of us. I had to turn that down because I really liked that. Yeah. Well, you could have got canceled too. So anyway, I'm out. I never said it.

They clearly knew they were about to shed. But think about this. This is an asset. I love Yahoo. Yahoo is still where I go for finance. And I think they do a great job. This is an asset. Yeah, I love Yahoo. Yahoo is still my, where I go for finance. And I think they do a great job. I like Yahoo Live. I think they do.

I think Yahoo is a really valuable property. It is the fourth most trafficked site in the world. Yeah, finances. And it just went for $5 billion. And numbers three, two, and one are all worth a trillion dollars or more. And so you have numbers one, 2, and 1 are all worth a trillion dollars or more. And so you have numbers 1, 2, and 3. I think it's Google, Facebook, and what's the third one? Fuck, I don't know.

Yeah. But they're a trillion. And then there's number 4, Yahoo, that just got purchased for $5 billion. Yeah. So I think there's— And you get AOL, too. I literally have no idea. There's all kinds of really interesting little gems in there.

What do people use AOL for? What? Is it dial-up if you live in, like, Kansas somewhere? Hey, dial-up was still a good business, I'll tell you. It didn't die that quickly. Let me just say, when this happened, you and I both know Tim Armstrong very well, and I like Tim Armstrong, and he's now into other things, direct-to-consumer stuff, DTC stuff he's doing.

But this was, I have to say, he and I wrangled quite a bit over what he was doing here. I thought it was crazy. I thought it was ridiculous. It was sort of like a duck, not a duck-billed platypus. What's that animal that you put together all the animal parts together? I think I used to call it that. It's a platypus, yeah. Yeah, whatever.

It just was crazy. I was like, this doesn't make any, like there's no synergy here. And then he kept, you know, he stuck on the Huffington Post first and then AOL and Yahoo and then blah, blah, blah. It just went on and on and on. And at one point, he even acquired about Recode, and I was like, I just don't even understand what you're doing. I just, you know, and everybody would leave.

Like, I don't know what to say, although I would enjoy the giant sum of money you gave me. It was just, it made zero sense whatsoever. It was, both those properties were mismanaged for years, right? Both Yahoo and AOL. And had been at the forefront of the internet, no question, and did all kinds of personalization on Yahoo, AOL, bringing consumer to the internet, essentially. But when Verizon bought it, it just made, like, I kept, I wrote a lot of people, you're

working for the phone company, that's great for you. a lot of people. You're working for the phone company. That's great for you. No, no sense. No, Tim Armstrong did his job. Tim Armstrong sold a bag of shit for a lot of money. And Marissa Mayer is arguably, I think, one of the worst tech CEOs of the last 20 years, worst acquisition in technology. Tumblr purchased within 60 days of what I think Instagram was purchased for, but for $100 million more. And it was sold, I think, for $3 million. They bought it for $1.1 billion and sold it for $3 million. I mean,

that's up there with like Bebo-style bad acquisitions. Bebo. That was an AOL special. That was Randy, someone or other. Time Warner bought Bebo. I mean, it's really interesting. Time Warner is the Kevin Bacon of terrible acquisitions. So Time Warner made the worst acquisition probably in history, $160 billion of AOL. Think about that. That's about, I think, what AOL was purchased for. It was not quite an acquisition, but go ahead. Yeah. Who was on top? Basically, all the AOL people got fired, which means someone is always the acquirer. I did do an entire book on it, but go ahead. Keep going. Please tell me about it.

All right. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Tell me what the 383 people who read that book got to learn. Oh, no way. That one did well. Did it do well? Yes, that one did very well. What was that called? Both of them did really well. What was it called?

One was called AOL.com. That was the first one in 97. And the second one was There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere. Now we're both about AOL? Yeah. Yeah, one was about the rise, and nobody had ever heard of AOL when I wrote that book. And then the second was about the fall, and then I declined to do a third. But here what it would be.

A trilogy on AOL? A trilogy. Oh, my God. Oh, well. And then you sold the film rights to Amazon. I did. I sold the film rights. I did.

Good for you. I think I bought a car with it. Anyway, it's a mess. And what will Apollo do with it, since you know these guys? So I don't know what they plan to do with it. What do they want? What I will do, I will call, I'm not exaggerating, I will call Apollo this afternoon or tomorrow, and I said they should merge it with Gannett and try and focus on offline and online media. And I mean, Gannett right now is trading at a market cap of $600 million, I think between Yahoo

and newspaper properties. God, you've got to have someone special to run that disaster. Like, that is hard to knit together. That would be tough. That would be tough. Yeah, you're right. That would be tough. But look, I think Yahoo at $5 billion. I'd like to call it Yahoo.

It's Yahoo. Tomato, tomato. Yahoo! Remember that? Hey, I'm trying to— Yet another hierarchical organizational orifice. I'm trying to assuage your pedantry here. I think that's what it stands for.

Yet another hierarchical, officious oracle. I think that's what it stands for. Yet another hierarchical, officious oracle. I think that's what it stands for. Yahoo at $5 billion is a massively undervalued asset. Yeah. I agree. That fourth most trafficked internet site in the world for $5 billion? I think you and I should run it right into a wall and then overpay ourselves. All right, last one.

Basecamp employees. Man, this tiny little story has gotten more attention. Casey Newton was telling me he got like a thousand new followers from this story, which is arguably a very small little company. But it's really hit a nerve, I have to say, with lots of people. One third, and not just Twitter, lots of people are talking about it. Basecamp employees have resigned. A third of them, of a staff of 60, have resigned from the company following the founder's controversial memo over internal policy. A third of them? Is that like nine people? No, it's like 20. But it's all the company following the founder's controversial memo over internal... A third of them.

Is that like nine people? No, it's like 20. But it's all the top people. It's really interesting. It's like the marketing head of... And when they said their goodbyes on the Twitter, they're all like, having been here for 12 years,

having been here for 13 years, having been here, you know, having built the first product, they lost some big names there. People had been there a long time. So something wasn't going right over there in the camp. So it turns out it's not what the money's for. I guess they did a lot of money.

People were mad about you. Well, first off, those people have a lot of options. They can go almost anywhere. But I think when you have that kind of defection, it's more reflection on the fact they don't like the person running the company. Or something. They were there for a long time. But what I don't get is, and explain this to me, why do we care?

This is a 60-person company. I have to tell you, everybody was talking about this story. Why do we care? Not the just media, you know, the internet media people. Lots of people knew about it. It's striking a chord with this how much can we talk in public thing. it's striking a chord with this, how much can we talk in public thing?

It's linked to all kinds of issues around race, around sexism, around behavior. I think it, and control of people, I think. You know what I mean? I think it just has a bigger resonance. I'm trying to get the two founders to come on Sway or here or anywhere, but they won't now. They said they would, but now they won't because they say they said too much,

which I think they said too much. And so it's a really, because, and they're also really well known for lecturing Silicon Valley on company culture. And so I don't know, it's a really interesting thing. I think everyone's coming out of the pandemic and they're like, what? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't. It's like, it's, there's, I mean, we talk about a lot of stories I have no interest in, but this ranks right up there. I just – it's a – Not so for everyone else. I agree.

I just don't – and you think it's because it's a larger reflection on whether or not you should bring kind of social justice and political views into your workplace. It's like anything. It's sort of this – here's what I think at the very base is Silicon Valley has promised people diversity, and we're a family, and we're like together, we're all together. You're going to get some stock. You're going to have skin in the game. And they've done almost nothing on diversity, but they let people talk. They do do that. They've never not let people talk about it and gripe about it and have memes about it and have big discussions about it, but they've never delivered. So now they're not delivering. And then also you need to shut up. So I think that's what happened. I think that's really at the heart of it. That's

my- So under the weakest flexes in the world, I was on the board of Gateway Computer. Oh, wow. Ted White. And that guy. I forgot about that guy. I went on after he had left, but the chairman of the board was a guy named Rick Snyder who went on to be the governor of Michigan. Anyways, they had like an all hands meeting and someone asked me a question, you know, as a new director about, you know, the Gateway family. And I said, well, first off, we're not a family, we're a team. You know, I'm not taking you to soccer practice.

And this notion that we're a family I think is misleading. I'm like, if this company continues to do poorly, we're going to fire a third of our family. Yeah, right. That's what I mean. And I don't – and everyone was very uncomfortable. But I don't – look, I think that maybe – okay, boomer. I don't know. Maybe I just look at the capitalism

differently, but I think for-profit entities are mostly about economic security. And I think you want to be purpose-driven. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I think it's inspiring all these young CEOs have more of a social conscious. And I think capitalists or companies can be a fantastic means of, powerful means of good. But I do think it's kind of swung too far where young people see their company as a platform for social justice issues. And also, there's just no getting around it. There's a certain level of out-of-control wokeness

involved in all of this, quote-unquote, freedom of expression. No one comes to work and expects to be able to talk about gun rights or the rights of the unborn because that's just not allowed at work. Those political views aren't— It is in some workplaces. It's not true.

There's lots of workplaces that are very Christian. Other than Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A, there's two. There's a lot. No, there's a lot. That's not true. That is not true. I know what you're saying. What tech company?

I'm going to push back on this one. I think if the Capitol gets attacked, you should be able to talk about it at work. If you see that video of George Floyd, you should be able to talk about it. I'm sorry. I think that's ridiculous. Our workplace has always been a place where people can talk. There's lots of ways they could have done this without going high on the horse after letting them talk about whatever they want, then saying, eh, it's gone too far, say nothing. Are you kidding me? Anyone would have reacted this way. You don't, it's gone too far, say nothing. Are you kidding me?

Anyone would have reacted this way. You don't think it's gone. I mean, I agree with you. I remember we did an all-hands when I was running Profit, my old brand strategy firm. I remember the day after 9-11, we, you know, the leadership and I was the founder, we all spoke about 9-11 and what it meant for the firm. And we had a New York office. But I didn't. This notion that your company, I mean, everyone has a right to rent their human labor for whatever reason they want.

And if a key criteria is that you want a purpose-driven company and a company that's overtly political, that's your right. And companies can fill that void. I just find it strange that there's an expectation. But there's not examples of this. In the case of this case, if you talk to the actual people, they haven't even formed. There was nothing that bad on the company. There was nothing bad happening.

They just made it up. I mean, that's what my impression is. Sorry, what did they make up? The idea that there was this roiling discussion among 60 people that was stopping work, it just wasn't happening. The same thing, like when Stephanie interviewed the governor of West Virginia. He was going on and on about transgender. And she said, give me one example that's been affected.

He didn't have one. And these people don't have one. They were not – these people were just – When you say these people, you mean the management? No, the people at the company were not over abusing the boards. They just weren't. There was maybe a little bit of back and forth that I've seen, but it was not. It's just, they just don't want to hear it.

And they don't want to, they want to, the problem with this company and it's like a lot of. What do you say about this company though? You're talking about the leadership. The leadership, yes. They invited you to speak and then they didn't like what you said. And they also were very active themselves when they felt like it. So basically it was two guys that are running things that just didn't want to hear other people. And I got to tell you, when, if I was at a group.

After saying we want to hear from you. After saying they want to hear from you. Right. Which they didn't really want to do and they didn't really want to change. And so, like, if you, if say I'm looking at a, if I'm at a company, I look at the board and it's 10 white men. I should be able to say, hey, fellas, is that political or is it just what the hell are you doing? What is going – why aren't you reflecting your workforce? I think it's a much bigger issue. And I don't – I think it's very easy to pull words like woke.

It's very easy to say, oh, they're social justice warriors. Oh, they're this. Oh, I can't talk at work if I am for abortion. Like that is – they're over, no, everyone on this little train can't talk about anything else because they're getting challenged. And it does go overboard, 100% does it go overboard, but it does not, in this case, they were giving them full rights to talk about it and then told them, then did nothing about the diversity issues that were raised, and then said shut up and keep quiet.

I think you brought up that issue repeatedly. If you invite people to speak their mind and encourage and try to be what I'll call politically conscious and weave that into your company's culture, you invite it and you can't just shut it down when you don't like the tapestry or the colors of that weave or that fabric. I do believe, though, that in general, people feel much safer being outspoken about what I'll call progressive issues and conservative issues at work. And I say that as a progressive. And I wonder if a lot of people are looking for work to be a safe place from some of that. That could be. That could be. But you know what? It comes after, I don't know, 100 years

of the other part. So like 27... Yeah, I know, but that's the argument that an overcorrection is due. I don't think an overcorrection is due. I just think that everyone else had to grin and bear that bullshit for so long. And believe me, I've been in a workplace where they say anti-gay things for decades. And then the minute you say something, oh, I don't want to bring your gay to work.

It's like, give me a fucking break. I had to listen to your stupid bullshit for decades. And I just feel like there's a, there's a, the reason why everyone's talking about it is because there's a very big middle ground here to be had by everyone, where you can bring yourself to work and you can conduct civil discussions. And then you can see actual movement on diversity that actually counts versus all this blabbery. The advice though, I mean, I try to make, you know, just a learning moment for young professionals. I think if you're going to be an advocate for people at work,

I think that's a wonderful thing. I think if you decide, all right, there's a certain group of people that I'm going to try and advocate for. I think every group needs advocates. And if you, if you see injustice in the workplace to try and be effective around having conversations with the right people instead of indignant to score virtue points. I think that's a powerful thing. Yeah. The advice I would give to young people, though, is that if you're in this environment, like

a very outspoken kind of social justice warrior at work, whether it's right or wrong, I think people immediately in the short term will say, you know, way to go, good for you. And then the HR people in leadership of the company go memo to self, that person is a headache for us. Yeah. And it doesn't help you, whether that's right or wrong. Right. Just be very careful because in the short term, it's a sugar high and you'll feel righteous and everyone will be supportive of you and all the lawyers will say, okay, don't fire that person for the next three to six months, but they will make a memo to self. So I would just say, just be very thoughtful about the notion that you can bring

the same sort of indignance and righteousness about your social justice issues that you take to Twitter to work. Anyways, I think you should tread carefully around this stuff. I think you want to show incredible courage around the work you do and the value you add. Because I think the political, I think expecting, calling out the company on stuff, I think the best call-outs are when you're effective and you go to the people in charge and try and educate them and actually foment change as opposed to publicly embarrass the company or the leadership at all hands. I just feel like they give them all these tools and that's really hard to get them back into line. And I think when people get a little bit of power, and it is a little bit of power, it's not a lot of power, and they don't see actual progress elsewhere, which is what you don't see.

And there's no good reason for it. The only answer is that if you look at a management staff and it's all of the same type of person and you're not allowed in there, you begin to understand the game is fixed. And so why not yell? I think that's what happens. And so if they want to make real changes in diversity and inclusion and things like that, that's one thing.

But they never do that part. That's where the real failure is when you look at those numbers in any case it's as you can see between scott and i it's a fraught issue i just get tired of like them very privileged people going on and saying they can't speak because like getting the fucking back of the line of this one because the rest of us have been listening to you for far too long anyway we'll see we'll see not you scott i love listening to you talk go on go on okay scott big stories first uh a trial between epic the video game company behind the game fortnight and apple starts this week in fact today as a reminder here's what got us this moment last summer epic announced that we're giving discounts on items in the game if users made their purchases outside of and Apple starts this week, in fact, today. As a reminder, here's what got us this moment. Last summer, Epic announced that it would be giving discounts on items in the game

if users made their purchases outside of Apple's payment systems. That violated Apple's in-app rules, effectively stopping the company from collecting commission on the popular game. And so Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store. This led Epic CEO Tim Sweeney to sue Apple in federal court

and public relations battle took place across the internet. I find them both exhausting in their back. Public relations battle part of it. But the trial carries major implications of Epic wins. It will upend the $100 billion app market. It could create a path for millions of other developers to avoid sending up to 30% of their app sales to Apple. This also feeds into some of Apple's other antitrust issues.

Regulators are scrutinizing Apple's control over the App Store. With regards to Spotify and others, last week the European Union charged Apple with violating antitrust issues, regulators are scrutinizing Apple's control over the App Store. With regards to Spotify and others, last week the European Union charged Apple with violating antitrust laws over its apps and fees. Meanwhile, Epic is gearing for a similar lawsuit against Google with the same issues. And so it's the issue of who controls the App Store and not just all the App Stores. So, Scott, what do you think? I think this is a really bad look for Apple. I think Apple's all wet on this, and that is, and Senator Klobuchar has written about this in her book. If Apple wants 30 percent commission, they need to offer the requisite value to command that type of margin.

In their iPhone, it's a superior phone that gets the greatest margin, and that is what I would call earned margin. And that is what I would call earn margin. In the app store, if a company feels like they can offer direct-to-consumer value for less, that's what you call competition. And Apple is saying, we're going to kick you off the rails because we dominate 80% by dollar volume of the rails here. That is the definition of antitrust behavior. And Apple did try to get out ahead of this a few months ago when they announced. Any app doing less than a million bucks pays a lower commission. That's about 2% of revenue. That really isn't meaningful. It was more symbolic than meaningful. But I just don't think there's any getting around it. If I were at Apple, I'd be saying, all right, it's better to take small case L right now and come to some sort of compromise here, they're going to lose here because this is pure antitrust behavior. This is monopoly abuse. The amount of money they get is vast. But what is their defense? What would you say their best defense is?

Besides let's negotiate and bring it down and everybody goes home happy, which is what I think they should do. We've made a mult-billion dollar investment in security. We've made an unparalleled investment in safety and security that other people shouldn't be allowed to free ride off of. And the only way we stop that free riding is by ensuring that people adhere to our terms and services. It's basically the utility argument that scale is required in certain categories. The problem is when you make that argument, you're basically playing into the notion that, okay, if scale really is mandatory here and beneficial, that means you're a utility and you need to be regulated. And there needs to be somebody from Senator Klobuchar, the FTC's office, looking at your pricing. This is where they are

all going. Which is where it's going. Let's be honest. This is where it's going. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. But they should, quite frankly, they should get out ahead of this. This is a crisis. The only thing you have to do in a crisis is acknowledge the issue. Have the top guy or gal, Tim Cook, should come out and say, we're dramatically reconfiguring the pricing. He needs to get out ahead of this issue because the government will come in with a blunt instrument and take those fees down. This is absolutely monopoly abuse. I don't think Apple will be broken up because elegant antitrust increases shareholder value. And it'd be hard to break up Apple because the primary asset here is the brand. I'd break it from the App Store. There is definitely a different line there than Facebook owning Instagram. Yeah, but Spotify, the App Store is their Achilles heel around antitrust. And they should try and get out ahead of it and take.

And their business is so strong right now. I think Apps did $60 billion last year. But they should sacrifice, again, take the small L here and get out ahead of this and say, all right, we're dramatically reconfiguring, working with the FTC, the DOJ. If they get into cars, AR, this will be nothing. Oh, my gosh. This will be nothing. And this could hurt them. That's exactly right.

It also does link to Amazon. The same thing is that they have this platform. They compete on the platform. The more they get into services, they've got to be very careful about what they do because they could have a better service, by the way. My kids are now on Apple Music and not Spotify, and they made a decision not based on ease, not based on price. They just like it better.

They like the product better. I'm still on Spotify. So they have to figure out a way to compete in certain areas that they find critical and not feel like the 800-pound giant of it to people. Go out of their way to make Spotify, to advantage Spotify or whoever they happen to compete with. Well, the trying to disarticulate from big tech and be, and, you know, start your hat and be the good guy. This would, this is where it matters. And they're going to have to, I'm telling you, this is their Achilles heel. They need to get out ahead of it. Yes, exactly. So Google, where does Google come in

if the next lawsuit? Well, Google, I mean, quite frankly, Google just has other sins to address before they even get to their app store because while their app store is dominant by dollar volume, it's iOS that really racks all the... It's interesting, even though Android has much greater market share, I believe iOS, the app store at Apple, is much more dominant in terms of actual revenue

and subscription revenue. And how much profit they get from it. It's enormous, enormous. I got to think that other – I mean, this is where it all goes. It all goes back to this kind of bullshit notion that media families decided they shouldn't be subject to shareholder governance by saying that they were so important they needed to think long-term and they created two classes of shareholders. And then Larry and Sergey decided to adopt the same narrative for the first time in tech. And it's led to some very ugly places where

now we have individuals who don't have economic control but have control over the company. And accountability and ownership and responsibility and authority should be all directly linked. And they're not with these companies. And I quite frankly, I think the majority of people, including Sundar at Google and the employees, are just like, get on with it. We want to get back to building great products. And they also probably realize their options will be worth more

when it's standalone YouTube, when it's standalone Google. I 100% agree. Apple should move into cars and health and different things like that and get off of this. This is not a good look for them. I agree.

Yeah, agreed. It's their biggest problem. And by the way, they have some really good attributes. I think they're, even though some people think they're scolding and sort of virtue signaling on the privacy thing, I don't think they are. I think they're right. And so. Yeah, but this is where they walk the walk. Yeah.

Quite frankly, that's them talking their own book. Yep, I agree. When they go, this moving, getting out in front of the app store, that would be really saying, okay, we take monopoly power. Just like encryption. I think they actually went out on a limb on that one a long time ago, way before other people did. Anyway, we'll see where it goes.

We'll be watching it carefully. Anyway, we'll see. And Epic's got, we'll talk about Epic's maybe next week because they've got some issues themselves. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. And as I said, we'll be back to talk about this and other things with Senator Amy Klobuchar. A little gangster. Senator Klobuchar. All things antitrust and other things. And I want you to behave. I want you to look up from your phone. I love Senator Klobuchar. She is a great senator, I have to say. And she gets shit done. She's,

she's, she wasn't a senator. She'd be an excellent co-host on this show, I think, for you. Anyway, we'll be back. That hurts my feelings. Why do you even say that? That hurts my feelings. I said for you, not for me. For you. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, for you.

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more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. All right, let's bring in our friend of Pivot who needs no introduction, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She has a new book called Antitrust, Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age. Senator Klobuchar is the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights. She's also the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee and led the defense of challenges to the electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania during the 2020 presidential election. But we're here to talk about antitrust.

I'm going to let Scott start, Senator Klobuchar, since I've interviewed you so many times, and I'm about to interview you again in D.C. So, Scott, why don't you start? You were super excited to have Senator Klobuchar here. I was. Senator, I'm a huge fan. I just love people who actually do the work. And by the way, I bought your book, and I'm going to take that in the streaming or the video of the Irishman and take three months

and get through both. This is a big book, Senator. You know, there's also an audio version that you could, you know, listen to. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That'll only take seven weeks. But thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you for all you've done in putting a big spotlight on these issues. I love this woman. I love this woman. Don't kiss up to him, Senator Globetrotter. Anyways, I'm sorry. Questions, Scott.

Back to you. Okay. So I thought it was really interesting what you said, that we need to stop referring to it as antitrust, that words matter, that we need to have sort of a competitiveness commission. Can you talk about what you think most of us get wrong about antitrust? I think that people assume that everyone's following it, every little detail, and most people aren't. And then they take that to me, no one cares about it. I don't think that's true. I think it's one of the major things affecting people when they look at their

cable rates, or they try to figure out why they can't get a good airfare when they're in a mid-sized city, or they don't understand why there is misinformation coming out of the big tech companies when they're supposed to be so sophisticated or why there's no privacy controls. So I think it's on us as leaders, both on the journalism side, but also on the political side, to make this really clear. This is a big deal. And I think calling it antitrust is kind of interesting, the law, because it has the play on words of antitrust, because no one trusts anyone anymore. We know it was really about taking on big trusts, which are today's Facebooks and Googles. But calling it competition policy to me is more forward looking, optimistic. It's really

looking at it in a bigger way. How do we if we believe in capitalism, which I do, but we believe there should be checks and balances. What kind of competition policy do we want coming from the government that actually encourages more small businesses and bringing rates down for consumers and getting more innovative ideas and actually helping people negotiate better wages? That's the kind of competition we want. So they call it competition in Europe, correct? They've used it elsewhere in the world. So there's a series of smaller actions. I'll call them competition actions expected in Congress throughout May.

Can you talk about the strategy? Because you're really leading it. And who are the key leaders in both the House and the Senate and at the FTC, et cetera? Sure. Well, when it comes to the antitrust side, competition side, in the House, David Cicilline and Jerry Nadler are leading that. David just did an incredible hearing on pharmaceuticals and had both the Senate and the House, David Cicilline and Jerry Nadler are leading that. David just did an incredible hearing on pharmaceuticals and had both the Senate and the House over there. And they've,

of course, made the major tech report over in the Senate. I head up the subcommittee. And then Mike Lee is the Republican lead. He and I together, every step of the way, just took on the App Store issue with a lengthy hearing and then follow up to question why a witness company was intimidated the night before the hearing. And so we lead this in the Senate, but other people who played major roles as it went along our course, people like Senator Leahy, who's been doing a lot from the beginning on this. Senator Kennedy is doing the newspaper bill with me to make it easier for news organizations to negotiate better rates with the big tech companies. You've got Elizabeth Warren, who's long been an advocate for doing something. You can kind of go through the list. Senator Grassley, I don't want to forget him. He's been hanging in there, speaking on pharma and then being willing

to talk about the fact that the agencies don't have enough money. You can't expect FTC or DOJ, Department of Justice Antitrust, to take on the biggest companies in the world ever known with Band-Aids and duct tape. And the last thing I'll say on the administration side, you have Tim Wu now in the White House. You've got Lena Kahn that's going to be, I know, confirmed for the FTC. And then you're going to have a new head of Department of Justice antitrust. We don't know who that is. And let's not forget Merrick Garland, the attorney general, who actually understands this stuff, what's taught it. And so I think that's exciting as well. the aides or the legislative aides, I don't know what the exact term is. They just, they look so depressed. And essentially, it's almost as if they feel they're just overwhelmed, that they're outgunned. Senator Klobuchar just panned left to some people.

The sense I get when I leave D.C. is that everybody gets it, but they feel like they're outgunned, that they've been overrun by the resources and the lobbyists and the lawyers of big tech. Do you, is this, A, is that correct? And B, how do we push back? How do we start, how do we, how do we bring more balance back to, you know, balance back to Washington? Talk about the strategy of what you're doing with each of these people. Exactly. So first, it's correct. We are outgunned. You've got the agencies that are a shadow of the former selves in terms of number of employees, even from back during the Reagan administration, back during a time when before Reagan, they were taking on AT&T and

breaking it up. So it's a legitimate issue. And then secondly, in Congress, we've just recently started to hire people and get the expertise to take it on. But I refuse to use that as an excuse. I just do, because I think that you can build a movement. It took them years, honestly, for Teddy Roosevelt to be able to win before the Supreme Court, the Northern Trust case. There are plenty of examples through history where you tried and tried again, and pretty soon people got educated enough, they were able to do it. So yes, more resources for the agencies, very clear leadership of the agencies. They know what cases and what they're going to prioritize, not wasting a bunch of money as much as I admire the work that was done on taking on

Google out of the DOJ. They shouldn't have been wasting money on marijuana mergers or during the Trump administration. So making a clear, clear mandate on what they're going to do and then asking for help when you need it. I just, I believe in sort of the saving private Ryan philosophy sometimes that small people, especially with the power of government and what the attorney generals are doing all over the country. Come on, people are passing laws on app, looking at app stores, passing laws on privacy. Pretty soon it all bubbles up to the federal level, just like the Sherman Act did, because states are doing stuff. So there's so much work going on that while it may look small, there is a movement happening right now in the country. And so we do have power. And I don't

think anyone should get depressed or undersell themselves. We're optimistic here. All right. So what is the strategy in terms of bringing, what should you see? Because people have been waiting a long time for this action. So what is the actual, how do you think about the strategy of doing this? Because there's a Google case, there's a Facebook case of the FTC, the Google's Justice Department. There's all these bills that you have. You have innumerable bills and they're little, they each address a different issue. How do you look at where people will see, then there's questions about Section 230. There's all kinds of things.

And then on top of it, it's politicized. So quickest way to get action is with the agencies bringing these suits, as well as private suits. like this month, working to pass this Klobuchar-Grosley bill, some way, find a vehicle to change the filing fees, which have been huge support from Republicans as well, because it's not taxpayer money, so that the funding goes to those agencies. That's the quickest way to get action. The second way is to have the administration basically look at the vertical horizontal merger standards, change some things that they can do without Congress. At the same time, I have a big bill. The House is working on things. We're working together, passing things. If we can't get the

big bill passed, there is sure a lot of sentiment to do some other things. So including the newspapers, including doing something on exclusionary conduct and just pushing these bills and finding the right vehicles to put them on. And so that's what, that's what we're working on right now. And if people claim they want to do something on antitrust and then they mess up an effort to even get a medium sized thing through, they should be held accountable for it. Because one of the most frustrating things, one of the reasons maybe you see Scott, the staff looking sad from time to time when you see meetings, it's because every time you try to do something, some company influences someone who stops it in its tracks. And that's why I think the accountability of putting light on this and holding people to their words is going to be really important. I'm curious. So let's just assume that Facebook and Google that already have several lawsuits seeking

the breakup of the companies. Do you think Amazon should be broken up? And then I think the tougher one is, do you think Apple should be broken up or just subject to regulation? And that case begins today, that private case with Apple. The games case. Yeah. So I am not going to wave a magic wand and say which things should be broken up.

I think in each case, and I've made it very clear because these cases have been brought against Google and Facebook. One of the clear remedies is to divest some of these assets, especially in the Facebook case with Instagram and WhatsApp. And that helps because then these competitors can develop again on their own, like the AT&T breakup, you can also put conditions in place. So let's look at Apple and Google or even Amazon in a different way, but look at Apple and Google. So what would you do there? Well, because they are this completely dominant monopolies in their respective platforms when it comes to these app stores. You could say this fee is outrageous. An agency could do that as part of a lawsuit. We could put in a law. When you're up, we wouldn't set the number. Probably

would make it easier for the agency to look at. When it's set at 30% and when the latest Epic Games public filing in that case shows that they may be making 75% profit. Who does that but a monopoly? So that's the first thing. Secondly, you can put in rules. The Justice Department could or FTC in a lawsuit, or we could put them in. You've got to be able to tell people they can get a cheaper deal on their own website. You can't self-preference your own products. So those things could be put in different ways. So I just am open to all of the above. It's not because I'm copping out here. It's just that we have to pursue many things at once. That's what Europe is doing. They're pursuing many things at once. What would you make of their

argument, say Apple in the case that they, which I was looking at their, their opening statements today is that we keep this area safe. And they, they have a good argument that these, these could like look at Google app stores, a little crazy comparatively. And they have a good argument that these, like look at Google App Store, it's a little crazy comparatively. And they do, they push safety, they push lack of grabbing privacy, because that's another thing that you talk about a lot. What do you make of those arguments

that they do need to have some control over something like the App Store, for example? Well, I think the answer is, like Mike Lee was pushing at our hearing and several others were, excuse me if this is true because you won't give us another number, which hopefully will come out because of this suit, 75% profits. I don't think that those billions and billions and billions of dollars in profit is all needed to keep people safe. I don't buy that. I think that they are using that as the excuse. I'm glad they

put money into security. That's a good thing. But I think they are over-inflating how much that is, which means they're over-inflating the prices that people pay. And I think that are they really keeping people safe, the tech companies, when you've got all this information out there? I just did an event with one of our African-American leaders, a reverend in Minnesota yesterday, along with a doctor at one of our leading hospitals. Just the misinformation out there on the web has really hurt us.

Then we have what we call the disinformation dozen, 12 people who are responsible accounts for over 60% of them. And okay, we've gotten a few taken down. Ben Ray Lujan and I wrote a letter and explained why and used this study. We found, why are we doing that? I'm glad I am. It's good. But I just find this troubling and I don't buy this argument. They're keeping everyone safe with the insurrection. All right. Well, in that case, it wasn't Apple's fault, but that was Facebook and us. Oh, yeah.

To make very clear, I think the tech companies had nothing to do with Apple. So big tech and antitrust around big tech gets about 90% of the oxygen. But isn't the reality that all industry in the U.S. is suffering from the same type of consolidation and monopoly power? What other industries do you think are most ripe for antitrust? Well, that's why, Scott, you've seen me use a broader approach of looking at exclusionary conduct from the past and not just focusing on gatekeeper tech issues, as important as that is. And I will join my colleagues in the House in whatever legislation makes sense that they're doing on that. But when you look at consolidation as a whole,

across the board, we've seen more and more big, huge companies and less choices. Pharma used to be much more competitive and now it's consolidating more and more. Look at EpiPen, what happened there? Look what happened with insulin. All these examples can you can point to less competition for various reasons in a certain area. competition for various reasons in a certain area. I start my book out with the story of a baby's heart valve drug that was 85 bucks per treatment for years and years and years. Didn't change at all. What happened? It was sold to one company and then that company bought the only other existing drug and they jacked up the price to $1,500 a treatment. I get a call from a pharmacist. We look at it nationwide. It's a disaster. FTC, attorney generals bring suits and basically the court, which have been a major

problem here, throw it out. And again, that's what drives me to say, it's not just about tech. John Oliver has said, it's everything from cat food to caskets. And if it's enough to make you want to die, good luck, because we now have only, his word, three casket makers in the country, although it's now down to two because one bought one. Well, I'm going to put Scott in a compost heap. I don't know if you saw that New York Times piece from this weekend. I'm just going to. Twitter knows you love the dog. Senator, don't ignore her. She loves the dog.

Let me ask you a question. How U.S. dealing with antitrust versus Europe's approach. How do you look at that in terms of because they've been more aggressive. Margaret Vestager has been very aggressive. Lots of people and across the world. It's not just it's not just Europe. Well, Europe, some of them have different laws. So it's easy for them to hold them responsible because of our Section 230 immunity. It's easier for them to hold them responsible because of our Section 230 immunity. It's easier for them to hold them responsible. They basically have their digital markets piece, and then they're looking at, of

course, some of the contents piece. And I think that they've done incredible work in leading the way. I think early on, everyone was complaining about that. And now people have realized I wasn't, but people have realized they were ahead of their time. And what I love about what's going on now is we're working with them. And when Australia happened and they tried to Google and Facebook were threatening to pull out of the country, Europe responded and a bunch of people in the U S responded and said, it was bad leaders in the U S and they pulled back some in what they were threatening to do. So I see this as working concert. I was glad that they have now put out more on the App Store issue after their year long investigation. There's absolutely no reason that

we can't be working together to come up with solutions that obviously don't get rid of tech. That would be a joke. They obviously don't just punish companies because they're successful. The idea is to make us all successful by making sure we have competition. Scott? I'd love to pivot to a couple other issues because I've learned a ton about, I feel as if I understand any trust better than your average bear. And I've learned a ton reading your book. I'm 300 pages in, so I'm about halfway through chapter two, but I appreciate it. It's a long book, Senator.

It's a long book. It is. It is. That's why your aides look so exhausted. Anyways, a long book. The footnotes. She's a lawyer. There are footnotes. Hello.

I just have a couple. It's nice to see a senator who actually does the work. Anyways, I said that at the outset. So just a couple of questions. I'd love sort of a lightning round answer here. I'd love to know from you, what were the biggest surprises to the upside and downside in running for president? Well, the upside was incredible, just understanding the whole country and the interest in our democracy and making it work again and in issues. I mean, it's just this incredible thing. And then being able to make your points on the debate stage, including a number of times on antitrust, including on voting and things that I have cared about for a long time. And I thought that was amazing opportunity. Being one of only a few women that have ever

been on that debate stage and for the first time having, I'm not going to list everyone, but near the end, Kamala and Elizabeth and myself out there and making sure people understand it's not one size fits all. That women can have different views, be from different parts of the country, act different, talk different, and argue with each other and it's okay. And so that was cool. The hard thing, of course, is, well, when you don't win, that's hard. Using your power, though, in a good way, which I felt was the right moment at the right time for the candidate I thought would win and be able to lead our country for the kind of leadership we need right now, and I feel that I've been right about Joe Biden, That was also an incredibly powerful thing. But it's not easy when you don't win. It's not easy when, you know, your staff is working so hard every day, and you don't just have

the funding to be able to run those commercials in the state that you want to run in, or in my case, you start catching on finally, you know, Hampshire in a big way. But by then, you know, trying to put the no one could have pulled it off, because you got to suddenly shift all the money that's coming into all these Super Tuesday states, not to mention Nevada and South Carolina. So all of that, it's, you know, insider baseball, but overall, it was a really positive experience. And it's given me now this platform to be able to take on issues I really care about, like antitrust and voting rights. to be able to take on issues I really care about, like antitrust and voting rights. It is interesting how all the candidates like Andrew Yang are for mayor, Pete Buttigieg is at the Transportation Department. But I'm going to pivot you back to the idea of the power you have now.

So you're dealing with issues of misinformation. You just brought them up on vaccines on Twitter. You talked about the January 6th attack. How does antitrust play into this? Because on Thursday, the Facebook oversight board, such as it is, we don't think it's that different than Facebook, is going to decide on Trump on, speaking of misinformation, probably the biggest font of misinformation, and things have calmed down since they removed him from the platform. So he can release a press release and it's screamy,

but it doesn't, it seems to not get the same resonance. So when you think about antitrust and the links to miss and disinformation, especially on critical things like vaccines or election, because right now it looks like it worked. Like all these Republicans are taking the vaccine. All these Republicans don't believe the election was, they think it's a fraud. How do you, what do you, does antitrust play a part in this, that these big companies that you can't control are doing this? It really does. As someone that believes in the market and in the economy, as long as you have a balance,

they've done us a disservice, monopolies. So one way to do this is regulation, which we must do. But the other is to allow bells and whistles and companies to develop that would have done a better job on privacy and misinformation. So when Mark Zuckerberg literally wrote in an email, it's better to buy than compete. When he wrote in another one, these businesses about the WhatsApp, Instagram types are nascent, but the network's established, the brand's already meaningful. And here we go.

And if they grow to a large scale, they could be very disruptive to us. What does that mean? That means that maybe they'll do better than them. That's competition. Maybe they'll develop a better way to deal with falsehoods on the internet through capitalism. And they basically stop that. So that's why I think that it is very relevant because monopolies make it harder for others to take care of some of the problems through marketplace and competition. But what now? And they basically took us out of that. What now? Literally, these polls that are coming out are astonishing about Republicans not believing in the election. Now, they may just be saying it off the top of their heads. It may not be quite as strongly held thing as my mom said it the other day, and then she took it back. You know what I mean? She does things like that all the election. Now, they may just be saying it off the top of their heads. It may not be quite as a strongly held thing, because my mom said it the other day, and then she took it back. Like,

you know what I mean? Like, she does things like that all the time. But what, how, if it's already, but in vaccines, you're seeing the numbers. It did work in some fashion. It's worked, although I just see in my state right now, we're turning almost up to 60% of people getting their first one. And I think that it is on us and on finding new ways to market the truth and stop the disinformation. As I said, I've stood out there about the disinformation dozen. They took down a bunch of sites. That was great. But I think that more has to be done to stop the disinformation because if we're not going to develop through the capitalist market because of monopolies, then we've got to put in rules. I also think looking at Section 230 and threatening the loss of their immunity in lawsuits for certain categories of information, not all of it.

And that's what the bill that Senator Warner and Hirono and I have put forward does. Scott, last question. Last question. Real quick, I interviewed your former colleague, Senator Franken on my other podcast. Would you be supportive? Do you think he should run for office again? He's a good friend.

And I think if, I don't know what he told you, but what he's told me is he's really happy with what he's doing right now. He's making a great contribution by getting issues out. I just talked to him last week. And so I think he's in a good place and that's gonna be on him. But we've remained friends throughout all of this.

All right, Senator Klobuchar's book is called Antitrust, Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age. It's a great book. Senator, thank you so much. Keep fighting the good fight, Senator. Show up with the work. Continue to bring it, my sister.

Continue to bring it. He's bringing it. He's bringing it. She's bringing it. Give her a break. Senator, I'll talk to you Monday. Those aides look 75 and they're 23. Keep working them.

That's right. Thank you. All right, Scott, one more quick break. She's amazing. We'll talk about her when we get back and we'll be back for wins and fails too. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO,

Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea. Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc.

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Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Okay, Scott, go ahead. Talk about Senator Klobuchar. She's amazing, right? Did I tell you? Did I tell you? I think we have to. I don't understand why people aren't more in love and more impressed by government, U.S. government, the's one of the senators that would rather would pick hard work over a camera. You know, it's not jonesing for a camera everywhere. She's actually writing books and writing great legislation. I got to think her legislators are exhausted. The amount of legislation she puts out. I think she's just incredibly impressive.

I think she still has a bid for presidency, I have to tell you. She's young. She's young, right? Young, very young. I mean, she looks young. Compared to the others, certainly. Yeah. She's a kid.

She's a toddler. I think she's someone people really, once you get to know her, you really do like her a lot better. That's the issue with her, I think. She's someone that really grows on you in a positive way, I think, in a lot of ways. And I think getting to know you is, I think, the thing, and competence is really hard. She obviously got that big hit originally from the whole thing around her comb and salad

and stuff like that. But, you know, honestly, she's, her ability. If it had been a dude, they would have said he was a leader holding his team accountable. I know, exactly. And instead, when a woman does that, she's a bitch. I mean, it's just a total double standard. I agree.

I agree. And by the way— What? I'm sorry, Cara. No, I was saying she's great. I think she's great. Go ahead. I've worked with a ton of CEOs.

She could literally be the chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company making tens of millions of dollars a year, flying around in her Gulfstream 650, and instead she decides to try and write laws. So I think I'm, I'm anyways, I think she's fantastic. Yeah, combs aren't your issue, right? You don't have an issue. Combs, go on, go on. I would. Me and my beautiful haired children. A lot of hair, a lot of hair. I'm growing a lot of hair out of my ears. I'm thinking about braiding it with the hose coming, the hair coming out of my nose. Anyway, she's wonderful. That was a great interview. She's very forthright. She answers the question. That's one of the pleasures of talking to her.

Except, would you endorse Senator Franken for another run? She avoided that. Oh, my God. She can't. She danced around that one. Why would she do that in advance? Why would she? She would.

She will. She will. I think she could have said he'd be great to have him back in government. No, she can't. She can't. She's not pulling. She's dealing with antitrust. She's not going to wade into that. You heard it here first. You heard it here first.

Senator Franken has kids and grandkids in Manhattan, and he spends a ton of time with his family. I think he should move to New York and run against Chris and Jill around. Oh. You're so bad. How awesome would that be? How awesome would that be? She's a tough cookie. I met her once. Senator Gillibrand? She scared me a little bit, I'll be honest with you. I met her in the Senate dining room. She's got a look. I think Senators Klobuchar and Senators Gillibrand, one is remarkably effective. Okay.

All right. Enough of that. Don't be dragging down the lady senators. Listen, listen. What is your win and fail? Come on. Just dragging and building up good and dragging out bad. Give me a win and fail.

Okay, simply put, wins and fails, respectively, are two companies have been valued at $5 billion for their most recent mark. One's going to be worth $10 billion within 12 months. The other's going to be worth less than $1 billion. Yahoo's the fourth most trafficked internet site in the world. Any competent management there, any vision, any reasonable owner there is going to make that thing worth $10 billion within 12 months. And then another company that was recently worth $5 billion, Clubhouse, is going to be worth less than a billion within 12 months. I told you I'm an investor in public.

They just announced a service that's similar to the Clubhouse app that works as well. I just did spaces with her. This is, you perfectly summarize this. This is a feature, not a company. Yeah. So, when? Yahoo's work. Janik Malling is coming on its way, just so you know.

That was your suggestion. Nice, Janik. Yeah. Does he know Marguerite Vestiaire? Yes, I do. Oh, Janik. I should know that. Yeah, you should know Marguerite Vestiaire? Yes, I do. Yeah. Oh, Yannick. I should know that.

Yeah, you should know that since you talk about it all the time. Yeah, you should know that. It was your suggestion. Anyway. Okay, those are good ones. Okay, those are good ones. Anyway, wins and fails. Yahoo, dramatically undervalued.

Clubhouse, dramatically overvalued. I like the pairing. I like the pairing of them. I'm going to do one. The win is, I got to say, call your agent. What? People have been bugging me to got to say, Call Your Agent. What? People have been bugging me to watch that frigging Netflix show forever. What Netflix show?

Amazing. Call Your Agent. It's set in France. There's a big old sassy lesbian at the center of it, and it's about an agency, like a celebrity agency. It's so funny. Who plays the big old sassy lesbian? Some French lady.

I don't know. Some French lady? But they bring in all the French stars. Did you actually watch it or is it anything with lesbian you decide's a win? No, not anything with lesbian. You haven't watched it. You avoided the question. Should Senator Franken run for office again? You and Amy, seriously. It's a great show. There's straight people on it too. You're like that guy, remember that old film critic Rex, what's his name? Rex Reed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you haven't seen it, but it's your win? No. You haven't seen it, but it's your win?

I watched Call Your Agent. Yes, of course. I'm sorry. Yes, yes. I've watched three episodes. Amanda and I love it. She's listening in French because she speaks French. We'll smell her.

She laughs ahead of me because I can't read that fast. She's like, ha, ha, and then I'm like, what? Okay, I can't help it. Quick timeout for a candid moment with the Swisher family while down in Delray. I know everyone's sick of this, so I got to do it. It's towards the end of the weekend, and you guys are packing all your bags up and headed out. We've all been together for three days. Everyone has been too close for 72 hours.

And finally, Giant Boy does something. He crosses the line. I don't know what he did. He was been too close for 72 hours. And finally, giant boy does something. He crosses the line. I don't know what he did. He was mouthing off to somebody. You take him in the corner of the living room and you're like, listen to me. And you start like berating him. And you, you yelling at giant man, it literally looked like Herve Villachez saying to Fernando Lamas, the plane, the plane, it's late because of it's your fault. It looks so ridiculous. I went over to my wife and I'm like, look at her scolding him. You were literally looking up like you were trying to identify a 737 in the high, in the sky. And you're like, listen to me, listen to me. You know what? He listened to me. Let me just say that.

It was hilarious. You're a gangster, mother. He was not as good a guest as he should have been for a moment. He was a pretty good guest. He was a wonderful guest. He played basketball with my boys. He was a wonderful guest. He did. He's a great kid. He's a really great kid. I love that kid. Both my kids are great. All my kids are great, including Golden Child, who was noted on the street. It was a very nice couple.

Very nice gay couple. They liked us a lot. They like us. We have great appeal. But thank you for that lovely story. Anyway, that's my win is call your agent. Watch it. It's great.

Call your agent. Okay. My loss is this COVID herd immunity. I can't read another story about frigging stupid Republican men not taking the vaccine. And I get why. And I read a very multifaceted story in the Washington Post this weekend about lots of different reasons. It wasn't just men, but it was a lot of men. And I get their issues around it.

It was developed too fast. I get their issues of – I don't get their stem cell thing. That's not true. But I get that they believe they're true. But it's just really, it's really, actually speaking of Giant Man, and I talked about it this weekend, how do you get people to herd immunity in this way? How do you convince them? And we concluded that you cannot. You cannot get them to do what is in their best interest.

So it's a little bit of a fail on our country that we have to kiss these people's asses. We need to get there. There's such a big opportunity in all of this. And if we can get to some semblance of herd immunity and crush the curve, America has always been, you know, we've always been the good guys and gals. We've turned back tyranny. Well, I know, but I think we have a big, I think the biggest opportunity geopolitically to not only do the right thing, but to do the smart thing would be to get to the point where we could start playing offense and shipping vaccine and really helping India out. The level of just death and disease and disability in India right now is so frightening. It is.

And America has always been, you know, we have so many resources and we demonstrate, I think, typically such generosity and such courage that the opportunity now is to crush the curve here and then to turn our sights on other areas of devastation because we're Americans.

And I think it's such a huge opportunity and people don't realize just as, you know, the swing vote, whether it's independents or Joe Manchin. Don't, don't, don't. How do we get them to take them? Scott, there's just, it's almost impossible. Like, this story was so disheartening in terms of trying to figure out how.

Oh, I think you should have led it. Okay, simply put, vaccine passports. You can't come into work. You can't travel. I don't understand why we. That's what Giant Man said, but I don't think you're going to get those passed. I think, I think Kristi Noem or some asshole from Alabama. Let me fast forward.

Let me fast forward to the opportunity to be Americans. Americans do the smart thing here, and then once we take care of ourselves, and that's our responsibility to take care of ourselves first so we can play offense. And the reason why India is so important geopolitically and the opportunity to help India out here, and we have the resources, is that India is about to become the most important swing vote in the history of mankind, whether it's deciding what is the default currency, deciding whether it's democracy or tyranny. India is 1.2 billion people across a much smaller area than Africa, and they are about to be the swing vote in geopolitics. And our opportunity to go in there and help them deal with what is, God, just,

do you know there were something like 400,000 reported infections yesterday? It's shocking. People are dying in the street in front of hospitals. Yep, and they don't have oxygen. But here's, let's get back to this country. What a selfish group of destroyers. That's all I can think of is like they can just, all they can do is break and then we have to clean up and break and we have to clean up. And this is what, listen, part of the modern Republican Party is doing this.

And we have to clean up. And this is what – listen, part of the modern Republican Party is doing this. Let's just break and break and break and point to Biden doesn't like meat and point to let's attack trans people. They just – all they do is make a big fucking mess. But wasn't there a group – just to be fair, wasn't there a group of Republican doctors or elected congresspeople who came out and said, look, come on, guys, get your head out of your ass. It didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't work. I'm just saying, look, they booed Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, two of the most conservative people.

Did you see that? Craziness. They just destroyed. You know, they're toddlers breaking plates. I just don't understand. You need, there are metal detectors at airports. You need vaccines to get into certain countries. Why wouldn't we demand vaccines if you want to go to public school, if you want to travel, if you want to get on a train, if you want to go on Amtrak. I mean, I just don't. Let's show some leadership here. We locked up

5,000 men in World War II for trying to avoid the draft. I mean, we aren't afraid to take leadership stands on a lot of things. Let's take a leadership stand here. Evidence is in. This shit works. Evidence is good for America. Make you do a vaccine patch for Kristi Noem. Jesus Christ. Anyway. There you go. All right. I'm mad about that. That's a fail. All right, Scott, this has been a riveting show.

Senator Klobuchar, of course, classed up the joint. She did. But in general, it was a riveting show. We have a lot to talk about next week. Obviously, we have Facebook will be by then. The decision will be made by then. This epic trial is going. And guess who's going to be on SNL this week?

So we're going to start to see a lot of stuff out of that. That is going to be really interesting, Kara. Elon Musk. He was asking for ideas for skits. It's the staff. He has no influence over that. They don't give a shit what he thinks. It's the writers.

The writers. Don't get me started. Don't get me started. It's like I hate that show and I have to watch it. I'm like so upset and I have to watch that show. You're going to watch it. That's right. The Dogefather.

I like Molly Cyrus. I think she's very talented. Yes, I do too. Maybe she'll be on the – She's got a beautiful voice. Maybe they could put him on like one of those chains with the balls on it, like a wrecking ball, and then they can do something around that. That could be a good – what do you think?

I came in like a wrecking ball. Don't ruin, don't ruin. You've ruined that image for me. You've ruined that. You've literally ruined that image. Seriously. You've ruined that image. I love that Miley Cyrus. I agree with you.

Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more and it'll be so, there's so much to talk about. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions. The podcast, the link is also in our show notes read us out today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis Bill Moss engineered this episode

who the hell is Bill Moss where did Ernie go Rebecca anyways thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts 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. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. The U.S. government, the most noble organization in history that continues to attract people who are leaders, who decide, you know what, I could make tens of millions of dollars. I could overrun the government. I could avoid taxes. Instead, I'm going to be the elected representative from Minnesota and be a total gangster, a total gangster. Scott has a crush on Senator Klobuchar. Hello.

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