Pivot - Big Tech wants to be your wallet and your healthcare provider. What could go wrong?

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

Kara and Scott talk about all the Silicon Valley companies rolling out credit cards and checking accounts. Google is also partnering with a Catholic non-profit that has clinics and hospitals around the country. In that new project called 'Nightingale', Google will collect patient data in its cloud computing and use AI to give treatment recommendations. We're skeptical. In Listener Mail, Kara and Scott ask a question about the rivalry between Ali Baba and Amazon, as Ali Baba makes a secondary offering on the Hong Kong exchange.Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, are both Kara and Scott's fail this week. He likened Saudi Arabia's murder of Jamaal Kashoggi to mistakes made with self-driving cars. Win is Disney+ (Scott's obsessed with the 'Mandalorian'). 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. harness the power and potential of AI. For all the talk around its revolutionary potential,

a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks performed by a select few. Well, Claude, by Anthropic, is AI for everyone. The latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Claude Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm today's co-host, the Mandalorian. Oh, my God, gangster. My family was killed, and now I am the premier bounty hunter in the world. I never take my mask off. By the way, do you know who's underneath that mask? Federico Pena, who is a tall drink of, I don't know how you say lemonade in Spanish, which I'm sure is offending millions of people. Although I can pretend I'm a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and mangle the Spanish language.

Listen to me. Listen, you have a lot of man crushes. Do you know this guy? He's the Prince of Dorn. Not that there's... No, I don't know. No, I know him. Yes, he's good-looking. He's a good-looking man. What a good-looking. That dude has presence. He was great. Except that scene, I'm still recovering from that scene where they crushed his head. I'm just like, I can't even, I didn't expect it. So what are you doing in L.A.?

You were in L.A., right? I was in Los Angeles meeting with my agent, trying to figure out why I have an agent, and he still doesn't know. But I have. I don't have an agent because I don't understand it. I don't understand it except that I'm taking money from me. I don't get it. Super smart. But are you going to be in a Disney Plus feature?

We're going to talk about Disney Plus. Oh, breaking news. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Green eggs and ham comes back to life. Also, Lady and the Tramp and the things they put on it

because some of the Disney movies of yore were a little bit racist, sexist, et cetera, et cetera. The professor is a tramp. Now streaming. What a dog. Scott is a tramp. Our show should What a dog. Scott is a tramp. Our show should be called Lady and the Tramp.

You are the tramp. That's exactly. I'm a lady. Oh, wait. Hold on. Another big announcement. Breaking news. We have decided to run for president on the, you guessed it, the Lesbro ticket.

That's right. Everybody's getting in. All those chickens who didn't devolve Patrick Bloomberg, they're all such chokers at the beginning, and now they're like jumping in. The pool is fine now that they didn't have to do all the work that the others did. I find it offensive. What do you think of that? I'm not voting for them just because they didn't start at the beginning. I like people who get in and go for it. I got it. I'm sorry. You can't just like enter at the end and then suck up all the oxygen. I'm sorry. No, you may not. I don't care. It's just not. You can't just, like, enter at the end and then suck up all the oxygen. I'm sorry.

No, you may not. I don't care. I don't—it's just not— You don't think we need it? In any case— You don't think it's a giant meh right now that no one's that excited? We need to pivot desperately to the center? No, I think we're just fine.

I think we're—you know what? This, too, shall pass. We will discuss this later. Let's get into the stories. By the way, there was a big story about Scott and I on our predictions. My predictions are getting really good now at this point. But in Australia, we are still not recognized in this country as the geniuses we are. But the Australians love us.

But in Australia, we're huge. We're big. Oh, my God. We're huge. And we will go there for a very small amount of money. That's the weakest flex in the world. We will go to Australia. We're big in Australia.

You live in San Francisco. I'm a professor at NYU. You're thinking about running for mayor of San Francisco. You know what? But we're huge in Australia. You live in San Francisco. I'm a professor at NYU. You're thinking about running for mayor of San Francisco. You know what? But we're huge in Melbourne. We're huge in Melbourne. That is a big—I love Melbourne. It's a great city.

I love Sydney. We are going to go there. If someone from Australia will invite us and pay us a pile of money, we will come and perform for the Australians because we would like to do that. Bondi Beach? Be together in Australia. Down Under. Listen, let's talk about—listen, we're talking about big tech again. So big tech wants to be your wallet.

Google is the latest giant to make bold moves in consumer finance. These people cannot not get into everything. So this week, Google said they'd be offering checking accounts next year with the new project. I think it's Cash Cash or Caché. I can't understand it. They pair with Citigroup and Stanford Federal Credit Union. The company claims they won't be selling user data, financial data, to advertisers. Facebook announced Facebook Pay, the new payment system that will work across all their various and sundry properties.

You'll be able to use it to send money to friends, shop, donate, fundraisers. This is coming just weeks after several big payment companies abandoned Facebook's four-way into cryptocurrency or that area's Libra. And, of course, this spring, Apple launched its credit card called Apple Card in association with Goldman Sachs. There were some controversy about that. We'll talk about that. And then, you know, Amazon's in talks with J.P. Morgan to start their own checking account. You know, this is—they are all making big moves in this space.

Uber, right? Uber is. Yeah, and Uber, yeah. Well, it's, there's this fundamental shift in business strategy, and that is C.K. Prahala, I hope I'm getting his name right, from the University of Michigan, who passed away, I believe, kind of redefined business strategy or defined business strategy with the notion of core competence. And it was sort of taken as gospel in the corporate world that you find one attribute of your business and you become great at it. And then you either outsource everything else or you're at industry standard.

So, Nike's core competence is marketing. FedEx core competence is probably operations, et cetera, et cetera. And essentially, Amazon and big tech over the last 20 or 30 years have blown that notion up and that construct up. Because what would Apple's core competence be? And it typically used to be companies kind of stayed in their own lane. You know, Apple, you make devices. Google, you're in search. Facebook, you're in social. And now they all believe in their strategy is we want to be your operating system for your digital world across everything that's reduced to digits, which means they want to be in almost everything. And we've never – and they have the cheap capital to do it. So, we've never seen this many armies fighting on this many fronts, going after each other in every territory.

for each other in every territory. It's really, now they all want to be in payments because payments is one of the few places that is growing fast and they see companies ranging, you know, from Square to PayPal that now have these multi, you know, 50 and 80 billion dollar market capitalizations. And they look at that and say, we're desperate for growth, so we got to get into payments. So, all of a sudden, payment's the new kind of streaming media that everybody's getting into. So, why, first of all, what are the implications for banks and other places? Because a lot of people, they're all like saying, this is their little line, the great unbanked. All these people are unbanked. Like they're doing it for good reasons.

I think they're just coming for our money. That's what I think. But they use that. That's Facebook uses it. And I think it's a very laudable thing. A lot of people don't, a lot of young people don't have bank accounts anymore. You know, people use credit cards, of course, but they're so full of possibilities of fraud and everything else. What can they do better? And what are the problems with all these people? And stack rank who you trust. I don't trust Apple except this card thing, which we'll talk about

the controversy. But who do you trust? I suppose Amazon and Apple is who I trust. Yeah, I think that's right. But there's a ton of opportunities. The unbanked or just transfer payments, a half a trillion dollar industry where undocumented workers or immigrants send money home and they have to pay upwards of 7% fees just to get money across the border. Right. That's a half a trillion dollar opportunity. Try to send wire money overseas. Young people are much better transferring money than us. But why does anyone need to go into a bank?

I mean, there's a ton of opportunity here. Applying for a mortgage is difficult. Getting credit is difficult. You know, the unbanked not having access to any sort of credit. There's huge opportunities. But what the banks have been really good at is they've set up regulatory hurdles and they've been such a lobbying force for Washington that it's unlikely any of these guys are going to be able to go around them. So when you look at the Apple card, it includes Goldman Sachs and it also includes MasterCard, the processor, the network is what people tell me. So this might be this kind of cooperation with the big tech guys that are in charge of technology and the front end of the marketing. But it's not like blockchain where they're trying to go around.

The opportunity to, quote unquote, disrupt the entire industry would probably be through a stable coin. Cryptocurrency. Yeah. And I think the opportunity there is probably for someone like an Amazon or maybe a WeChat. But the payment industry is incredibly boring when you start talking about it, incredibly complicated, which probably means that's where all the shareholder growth is going to be because it's the stuff that isn't sexy that moves the needle in terms of shareholder value. And these guys have distribution. I would imagine if you're the banks, where are you going to get the business? How are you going to attract people? Sort of like why entertainment companies did deals with Amazon and Netflix and everybody else is because that's where the people are.

And I think what's interesting about it is that they – it's growth for both of them, right? It's like finding things they're already doing. And in China, people don't realize, like, there is a mashup of all these companies in one app, in WeChat. And so there's a mashup of all these things, and they do all kinds of transactions. Someone was talking about that you go to China and there's no money. There's like everything is by these apps and through your phone. And so it's all sort of ganged up. And I really was just, it made me start thinking about what I, how I use, how I don't use cash very much at all. Of course, I use credit cards a little more, but more and more, like I've used the Cash app by Square.

I use Venmo quite a bit. I use PayPal quite a bit, although I'm worried about it. Like, I'm worried about the safety of them. And so, it's a really interesting shift in mentality, the way you shifted from landline phones to mobile phones and everything else. But here's a McKinsey poll. Ask consumers which big tech companies they trust with their personal finances. 65% of customers said they would trust Amazon. 58% would trust Google. That's a lot. 56% said they'd trust Apple.

And only 35% said they'd trust Facebook. I would think that would flip for Apple, but maybe not. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, it's Amazon. I also think it's a generational thing. I don't know about you, but I was in Vegas this weekend. And I went to the cashier, and I got some money. And the dog loves having Benjamins in his pocket. I think it feels— My son is like that, too.

Oh, my gosh. It feels like I have some sort of heat shield or Kevlar on me. I just love rolling with a bunch of hard currency. You know what I also love? I just love the euro because it's so beautiful. I love—whenever I get to Europe, even though I probably won't spend it. You like to touch money. Well, I like to spread. You probably put it on the bed and you roll around. Oh, my God. Don't criticize my hobbies.

That's called. Listen, I'm going to mention the Apple controversy. The thing with Apple is I talked to sources there, and this is a controversy where Apple's co-founder, Steve Wozniak, complained that couples are saying that women are getting offered lower credit lines than their husbands when they separately get things. What's interesting is Apple's trying to, of course, figure it out and figure out a transparency around it. But people who are close to the situation tell me that one of the issues is a lot of people who are very wealthy, like Steve Wozniak as well, have joint cards, but they're in the husband's name. And so if you're a signer onto someone's card, your credit is not as good,

even if you use a credit card a lot. It's a really interesting thing is that if you're not the authorized user, you have less status or something like that. Anyway, they've got to figure out, what they've got to figure out at Apple is over this controversy over these letter of credit lines is giving people more transparency into their credit,

not just the number, because that's not the only thing that goes into it. And then secondly, really trying to figure out a way to share credit cards where everybody gets credit if you do well kind of thing. That's going to be a really—if Apple can do that, that would be really—and take this really bad PR black eye, it would be kind of a good thing. So break down—first off, break down—do you use Apple Pay and then break down your expenditures? If Kara spends $1,000 over the course off, break down. Do you use Apple Pay and then break down your expenditures?

Yes. If Kara spends $1,000 over the course of, I don't know. I use credit cards a lot still. I still use credit cards almost completely. And which brands? Co-branded? All kinds. Anything that will give me, like, I have a JetBlue card because I like, I fly jet, and I like to go on the first class, and so I like to save up miles.

I use a Chase United one. miles. I use a Chase United one. And so they're linked to airlines, but that's becoming less and less attractive over time because you don't get as much stuff. And I have an Amex just to have, and I don't use it that much. And I have a Prime card, and then I get Prime numbers from Amazon back. And then I have an Apple card. I use them back and forth. And then I don't use cash, and I use the Apple Pay a lot. I use Apple Pay a ton, ton, ton, ton, ton in stores, but they're all linked to my credit cards, the various credit cards. And then I sometimes use Apple Cash, but I tend to want to get something for my spending because I spend a lot. My son, on the other hand, loves, like you, cold, hard cash.

He likes cash. He's a cash guy. Well, you know what the dog, besides cash, the dog uses a co-branded Discover and Olive Garden card because that's effectively a prophylactic ensuring no one will ever have sex with me. I just show them that my card, I just show them my Discover Olive Garden card and they're like, okay, I will not procreate with that individual. Well, I like my Prime card. It's interesting. Although I have so many problems with Amazon and the wastefulness of everything they do. Yes, they do. All the time. All the time.

All the time. But again, it's linked to my credit cards. So very quickly, let's segue something. Speaking of Amazon, you were talking about them getting into the healthcare space big. That was one of your big predictions. But Google, again, is reentering the healthcare space. It's been in this space many years. People forget there was a vault they had.

There was something else. I can't even remember the name. I wrote about it all the time. It was so confusing. But this is a new project called Nightingale, and it's a cloud partnership aimed at collecting health data. Oh, that doesn't sound like it could go wrong. It's a partnership with a Catholic nonprofit called Ascension that has nearly 3,000 locations in 21 states. Doctors will put patient data into the database, and then Google AI, Nightingale, will spit out suggestions like treatment plans, background information to help the medical recommendations.

HIPAA compliant, they're not making money off of it. What do you think about it? I don't like this. I don't like it. Sundar Pichai is interested in getting areas of growth for cloud, but it worries me, the health care and the financial stuff. But, you know, you were saying that this is going to be big. This is the next, you know, media. They've squeezed the juice from the media lemon, and now they need to find another combined trillion dollars in market capitalization to take from somewhere else.

And it's kind of, there just aren't that many places you can look at it. Amazon has disrupted retail. Google and Facebook have disrupted media. Tesla is attempting to disrupt auto. You have Walmart and Amazon trying to disrupt the largest consumer category in the world, groceries. So, there aren't that many places you can go. There aren't that many, you know, giant countries with oil reserves you can invade and you immediately... Autos. It's healthcare, 16% of the GDP. Although I think where most people focus is the wrong focus,

and that is they focus on cost savings. And I believe the real unlock in health care will be giving you back a couple years of your life. And when I think about what Facebook and Google and the streaming services and Netflix have done is that if I just watch Netflix and I don't watch broadcast television, I save between two and three weeks of my life watching advertising. So effectively, Don Draper is one of the biggest murderers in the history of mankind because he's stolen two to three years of your life watching ads for opioid-induced constipation treatments. So the big unlock around healthcare, and I'm sure anyone listening to this has experienced this, I've had a cough for, and it's finally better, for about four weeks. Immediately, my sister and my dad get freaked out and say, oh no, you never get sick, it's a cough. And to get an x-ray on my lungs took me eight hours. By the time I got the prescription.

Our healthcare system sucks. And here's the thing, there's a lot of people that are insured. There's a lot of people with money. I know we always talk about the uninsured and that's a huge problem. But what we don't talk about is the amount literally of years or months of life that we're wasting in a bureaucracy. So, if these guys can—and I think my understanding of Nightingale is it wants to use AI to get to a diagnosis faster and a treatment plan faster. Because I found out last night a friend of mine is sick, and he's spending a ton of time trying to figure out a plan of attack. And if someone with Google's credibility came in and said, okay, here are your markers, here's your background, here's, you know, they got all

the right inputs, they could immediately kind of cut through at least a promise, cut through the noise to the signal and say, this is exactly the treatment plan, who should deliver it? And, oh, maybe we've even used Google Assistant to set up those appointments such that you could get on it and have some peace of mind and save some time. It has to be more efficient. It's so crazy non-efficient. I spend more time on phone making doctor's appointments than anything that I waste time with. And there was an ex-Google employee who was doing this thing called Forward in San Francisco where they would do this. I don't think it went very far because it was aiming at people who weren't really sick,

which are younger people. But it was sort of this concierge doctor idea, but trying to get it a little more, you know, trying to take the two things early. Everything, the doctor was in the room with you and would speak and the computer would take down what they were saying. It was all kinds of bells and whistles and that kind of stuff, nice outfits and stuff like that, and all kinds of tests, and everything on an app. Someone's going to unlock this and become very wealthy. And it's a really interesting thing for Google to get into it. They bought Fitbit. Obviously, they're pushing into healthcare.

Apple has sort of pushed into healthcare, health, business, and Amazon is. So, again, just like with money, money works pretty well, but healthcare is definitely an area that is, I don't know, it's an interesting thing. I hope you're okay, Scott. Are you all right? I'm fine. Thank you for asking. It's nice to know you care, but I'm fine.

It's because you rolled around in all that dirty money when you were in California. You just want to go to Australia. I'm your ticket to Melbourne. You are my ticket. We're going to go to Germany. We're going to be so much time together. You and I on the road. Dino and Sammy.

Wait, Dino and Jerry Lewis. I know. Whatever we are, we're taking it on the road. Dino and Sammy. Wait, Dino and Jerry Lewis. I know. Whatever we are, we're taking it on the road. Dino and Jerry Lewis. Oh, my God. Nobody understands that reference, Scott. Nobody. Nobody.

Except the French. We could go to France. Let's go see Macron. Macron. He's dreamy. Macron. Macron. I love Paris.

By the way, I think Paris is a super hot city. You know where we should go? We'll go visit Angela Merkel. We could do a whole thing. The hottest city in the world right now is Mexico City. We should go to Mexico City. I don't think we have any fans in Mexico, though. At least we don't hear from them.

I'm sure we do. Mexican fans, please write us on Twitter. All right, Scott, we're going to take a break now. We're going to get back. We're going to have listener mail. We have crazy amounts of listeners. We have a lot of fans. You love talking about us.

People love us. I love that you love talking about us. I'm just saying. No, I really do. I have an entire and giant menagerie family. I'm like the Mormons. I like, I'm so glad you said that. Well, let's run you as an independent and shave off a few points and take back the White House. Just call me Mitt Romney. Anyway, when we get back, we'll have listener mail, wins and fails and predictions. We're here pivot. For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

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

These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to

work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Welcome back to all our dozens and dozens of fans south of the border.

By the way, you brought up Mormons. I just want to say, and this is an incredibly oxymoronic statement, I fucking love Mormons. I grew up with Mormons. And my closest friend, Brett Jarvis and the Jarvis family, I was raised by a single mother who was working a lot. And they totally opened their arms and took me into their family. They used to take me to athletic events. The Church of Latter-day Saints in Westwood was incredibly generous, and I used to go to the dances there. I got some issues with Mormons from the old days, I got to tell you. They were very anti-gay for a long time.

Okay, and I acknowledge, and anti-black, and for some reason, God never decided to speak to black people or women, and they couldn't rise to the highest level of whatever called the grand poobah. But I'm just telling you, in terms of people, Mormons were absolutely wonderful to a 16- and 17-year-old Jewish kid. They just couldn't have been more Mormon-loving people. So I love Mormons. That's good. I think you can't make a determination on an entire class of people. Sure you can't.

When the missionaries come by, I always invite the missionaries in. Do you ever have missionaries come to your door? You know, that Mormon, what is it, Book of Mormon is the funniest show on Broadway. You have to see it. It's been there a long time, but it's hilarious. And actually a lot of Mormons go, which is interesting. All right, listener questions. This week's Pivot listener mail comes from Zawar Nasir. He's a student at Davidson College, and he wants to know about the

dynamics between Amazon versus Alibaba. He says he knows they're operating in completely separate markets, but he's wondering if maybe they're headed for a collision in the next five to eight years. I know that Alibaba went on the Hong Kong markets this week. So what do you think? Thanks, Awar. Scott, go ahead. So I think Rebecca Sinanis is coming for our job. Did you listen to that read, all the, like, charming inflection and up and down? I think someone's gunning for our job.

I think she's getting a little too—I think she wants to be front of the mic. I feel very threatened. We must make a— I'm good with it. You think so? I would like to give young women an opportunity to do better. As usual, you want to crush their spirit. Listen to me. Okay, what do you think about Amazon and Alibaba? Zawar Nasir asked a question. Would you please answer it? So, my initial answer is I don't know, but my sense is the xenophobia in the U.S. demonstrated by our leadership has led Alibaba to recheck their

expansion plans in the U.S. and focus on other markets. And so the two, Amazon and Alibaba, in my view thus far, aren't on a collision course. Because if you're Alibaba, to be the number one player across e-commerce and other things in the fastest growing economy and the second largest economy is still a pretty good wrap. They can still double their market cap without finding international growth. So I don't see them on a collision course. At least I don't visibly see it, but I don't understand. I'm not like an international, you know, digital guy.

Yeah, I agree. I think you're right. They're not going to—they're very good in their country. It's one of the most valuable companies in China with nearly a half a trillion dollars in the world. And they have other markets they can go to. And Amazon's not in China in that way. So, I agree. There's going to be separate markets.

I think what's interesting is something like ByteDance. When you see what happened with TikTok, the popularity, there is a possibility of these companies. You know, Alibaba has some amazing commerce ideas and innovations. And I think if it was allowed to compete here in the way it wanted to, it certainly would be an Amazon competitor. It just won't be, correct? The one thing Apple has that Facebook, Google, and Amazon don't is that it's got a huge business in China and is truly a global company. a huge business in China and is truly a global company. And it's been able to figure out a way to play nice in China, largely because it's not an information or a data company. But it's difficult. You got to imagine the most valuable company in the world will, and Microsoft also, as a truly

global firm. So it's hard to be number one, and they all see themselves as number one, and that's why Mark Zuckerberg is learning Mandarin. It's hard to imagine being the most valuable company in the world if you're a Chinese company and you're not in the U.S., or if you're a U.S. company and you're not in China. And speaking of the most valuable company in the world that's going to go from $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion in the next 18 months, Apple, on the backs of, what did they announce this morning, Cara? Well, what's our word? Come on, what's our word? Rundle. That's right. You're learning.

Recurring revenue bundle, they announced it. I'd Rundle. I would Rundle with Apple anytime, even despite all their problems. Apple and Kate McKinnon, you said you would Rundle. Anyways, and then they have, so they're talking about Apple TV Play. This was so obvious where this all was headed, between Arcade, between Apple News, between Apple TV Plus, between Apple Music. They're going for, they look at Amazon and think,

okay, this company pulled the ultimate Houdini move and moved from a transactional business to recurring revenue bundle, and Apple wants to be the rundle. And they could have potentially the largest rundle in the world, and they announced that they're going to move towards a subscription. And think about this. I'm so ready to just have Apple take over my hardware and some of my subscription life and just say, I want the new iPhone seven days before it's out. I want it preloaded with, you know what I like. I want Apple TV on it, Apple TV+. I want music, even though Spotify is better. If you bundle it with my hardware, I'll probably offer Apple music. It's the same way that it's become stupid not to have Prime. It could become stupid for the globally affluent who all aspire to be part of the Apple tribe to essentially say, all right, I'll pay $29, $49, $79 a month for everything.

Send me the newest pods. I get one set of replacement pods because everybody loses them. But they could be, in 12 months, they could see a 30% to 50% increase in their market capitalization with no tangible increase in EBITDA or revenue just by moving, showing that the fastest growing part of their business is a movement from their existing customer base to their rentals. I'm literally just thinking this. Say more.

I was thinking this last night. I was thinking of watching that Let It Snow movie on Netflix, which is supposed to be really goofy. But I was like, I'm not getting rid of Netflix. I was looking at the cost of it. I was thinking I want to have the morning show, but do I want the music thing? And should I leave Spotify?

I literally was like, and I was thinking, if I get a bunch of stuff, sure, that's valuable. Same thing. So, you have a relationship with Amazon, with Apple, and you want them to do more for you because they work. I think the issue, of course, is data, and I would trust Apple a lot more. All right, speaking of which, let's get into wins and fails. I think Disney Plus, I think they had early tech snafus. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah, and you know what? Speaking of Lady and the Tramp, win.

And kids have started this war. I noticed, I don't know about your kids, but my nine-year-old came home and he said, can we stream Mandalorian Apple TV Plus? And he wouldn't leave us alone until mom and dad figured out a way. And one of the weaknesses of Disney Plus relative to Netflix is its technology isn't as strong as evidenced by the snafu yesterday.

But by the time I figured it out on my Apple with Apple TV or what's it called when you can stream off your Apple, which I did on our Samsung television, and we watched The Mandalorian. And what was really, I thought, really interesting. First off, watch The Mandalorian with your boys. It's fantastic. What is that? The Mandalorian. It's a Starorian with your boys. It's fantastic. The first— What is that? The Mandalorian. It's a Star Wars spinoff.

It's about a bounty hunter. All right. But what's so interesting and that I noticed in this show, I also—comparing and contrasting it with Apple's The Morning Show, kind of the first foot forward of Disney Plus and the first foot forward of Apple TV Plus, it's clear that Disney just knows what the fuck they're doing and Apple doesn't in this category. Because if you think about the morning show, supposedly they spend more per episode than Game of Thrones on this thing.

And they leave so much money on the floor. I mean, it's a nice, cute show. I'll watch it. It's not as bad as the critics say. But it's not worth $15 or $20 million an episode. And then you watch The Mandalorian from a company that's actually in this business and they're so smart. They're similar to the NFL

and that is they figured out if you put helmets on everybody, no one establishes the brand equity to begin starching all the margin from the league. So the NBA and the MLB have to pay their players more because there's 42 guys with helmets on and they never get that much brand equity unless you're Tom Brady. And the same thing in The Mandalorian, they're all wearing costumes and makeup, so probably their costs on talent are way lower. Instead, they've

got to pay Jennifer Anderson and Reese Witherspoon and Stephen Carell just a boatload of money. Also, all the production values, you could see the Star Wars The Mandalorian. It was kind of 80% of Star Wars for what was probably 20% to 30% of the budget. So, as someone who thinks about business, the Mandalorian probably cost a fraction of what the morning show cost. Let me just say, though, Disney has spent a lot of money on online stuff for decades. I've been covering it for decades since Eisner was there, who made so many mistakes. It was crazy. And things that they bought, they have made so many errors over the years. And they finally are there, I think. They, you know, they bought, even just recently when they bought Makers and stuff like that, they've been sort of stumbling around. They thought about

buying BuzzFeed. They thought about buying Vice and stuff. I got to say, this is, they finally figured out what they do well is make great content, and they just need to deliver it in a way that's attractive to people. It's taken them a long time to lose their, we need to be like techies, and they need to be like Disney with better tech, is what they do. But if you look at Hulu, if you look at Peacock, if you look at Amazon Prime, if you look at Netflix, I don't think anyone has had the successful launch that Disney Plus has had. It's the content. But it's so interesting, isn't it?

Because it is a content, it's a distribution. What is distribution? It's their distribution, their theme parks, and their retail stores. And what's really interesting is you could argue, you could argue, I'm thinking a lot about the streaming wars because I just think it's just fascinating, the war that's broken out this quickly with this level of armament. Would the winners, somebody asked me yesterday, who are the winners, who are the losers here? And if I had to pick one theme, it would be who can monetize the goodwill and the loyalty

you get from media across other high-margin categories. So— They can. They bought some good shows. They bought some good shows, too. Well, but The Mandalorian— Some kids might— They're going to sell—

You and The Mandalorian, there's also, I think they bought—one South Park, one family got one of them. They bought a couple others that were friends. They bought a few. But here's how they increase market cap, is they're going to sell a bunch of Mandalorian action figures over Christmas at 85 points of gross margin. You were paid by Mandalorian. You're like Adam Neumann. That shit is gangster. That shit is gangster. It's really good. All right, calm down. Now, listen to me. We need a fail, though. I have to say, this is a real coup for Bob. I'm not even—we didn't talk about this, and I'm going to guess you and I have the same fail. No, I have several, but go ahead.

Dara. All right. You talk about that. Well, look. Okay. I have spoken to him. These interviews are important, and the best, or I think one of the best things that you've done professionally where you've had the most impact is when you have these unscripted moments on stage when it's a human

asking another human for the response. All right, let's be fair to them. So, let's go to a tape from Axios who interviewed Dara Kosrashahi. I think that government said that they made a mistake. Well, they made a mistake and somebody's dead. Listen, it's a serious mistake. We've made mistakes too, right, with self-driving and we stopped driving and we're recovering from that mistake. So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that they can never be forgiven. I think they've taken it seriously. The CIA didn't suggest that they made a mistake and it was an oversight. Like with self-driving, that was basically a bad sensor, correct? The CIA suggested that the crown prince had a role in ordering an assassination. Whoa.

And he came back pretty quickly. From what I understand from insiders, he like immediately, you know, his PR people, just their heads blew off. And he started backtracking and saying he was sorry and he misspoke and this and that. So, you know, and again, the Saudis are Uber, I wrote a big column on this in the Times this week, Saudis are Uber's fifth largest investor. They've been a big investor through PIF, their public investment fund. And one of the people, the person who runs that fund is on the board. I would remove that person immediately.

I mean, they've got to figure out what to do without looking like they're trying to whitewash this thing. Well, here's what's going on. So the gentleman who serves on the board, who represents PIF, this is what happens with the CEO. The guys who are on your board, you want to become friends with because they get to decide how much money you make. First off, they decide if you survive. The board right now could figure out a way to justify firing Dara Khosrowshahi.

They could say it's the wrong strategy so far, the IPO was a disaster, you're out. They could also decide to pay him $100 million. So, when you're the CEO, when you're Dara Khosrowshahi, you find ways to really like your board members and say nice things about them, even when an Axios interviewer makes you look like a total ass, which this interviewer did. So, the CEO has a habit of really liking his board members because, A, he usually does, and they're usually very charming, smart people, and B, because it's in his or her best interest to say really nice things about them. But the fact that this individual on the board, and the fact is on the board, is probably wrong. I agree with you.

I think the nominating committee, the chair of the nominating committee should probably say, maybe you should roll off naturally and we'll come up with some excuse similar to what Susan Desmond Hellman said that, oh, I'm leaving for X, Y, and Z reasons. But to conflate a mistake, like I left the garage door open. That's a mistake. To conflate a mistake with the state-sponsored murder of an American journalist kind of says one thing, that Dara Khosrowshahi has really poor fucking judgment. I mean, this was literally like, okay, let's be clear, Dara, that wasn't a mistake. That was a huge tell that you probably shouldn't be running a company as large as, I was a fan of Dara Khosrowshahi. I said, he's the new lipstick on cancer. Sheryl Sandberg has graduated just to cancer.

And so he's the new lipstick on cancer. But boss, that was just, if you really believe what you said, and then my favorite thing is, and I know how much you hate this, he decided to clarify his comments when he realized how badly he had fucked up. And here's the thing. When anyone clarifies their comments, they might as well say, that was the real me, and I got to put that shit back in a box. Well, I think he's going to come on my podcast. So if you'd like to join, I'd be happy to.

I agree. I think they can't make any move. They can't, like, give money to, like, a press. I think they're struggling to figure out how to deal with this because they were dealing with other actual issues, too, that were already problematic. This is just a terrible—it's not even a mistake. You're right. It's something worse than a mistake. But they're already dealing with the sell-offs.

They're dealing with the stock. They're dealing with their business plan. What's your fail? I think this is probably it. I think the same related Facebook had deemed Breitbart a credible news source in its news tab and, of course, leaked emails from Stephen Miller of the White House, emailed Breitbart to tout eugenics and white nationalist conspiracy theories and offer tips how to cover immigration,

amplify stories about black and Hispanic crime. I mean, like, two things. Our social agency has to throw this guy off the board, the piff guy, do it, like, just say, do something more than a clarification, and then Facebook should throw Breitbart off of its credible news source tab. They can distribute it all at once, but I don't know. Or should we, just while we're there, should we also throw the white nationalist out of Washington, D.C.? Can you believe this?

Can you believe we have a white nationalist? And you've got to love AOC. I mean, I don't love her policies, and I can't. I'm angry that she would be, in my opinion, strategically dumb enough to get in wars with Nancy Pelosi or shouting matches. But she was awesome saying, well, let me get this. We have a white nationalist in the administration. We have an admitted white nationalist with Stephen Miller.

Anyways, we're not supposed to talk about politics. Let's move on. Okay, my win is I think there's some wonderful, I love this idea of unlocks just vis-a-vis talking about things and acknowledging the issue. And I've noticed, and I don't know if you've noticed this or I'm just more attuned to it, this Veterans Day, there's been a lot of really open, honest, and wonderful conversations about the fact that suicide will take 20 veterans' lives each day. And that right now, suicide is the enemy combatant that is taking more lives of our brave young men and women. And the notion that we're talking about it, I think is in a very, I turned on Stephanie Rule's show on MSNBC today.

I was listening to the BBC last night and they were talking about suicide among American servicemen and servicewomen. But it feels like more than just having halftime flyovers and, as most sports leagues do, wrap themselves in an American and veterans flag, when in my view, it's mostly just show and bullshit. But it does seem like we're talking about a very uncomfortable topic, and that is when our young men and women return. They're having trouble integrating into society and that the largest enemy right now is suicide. And to think that more people are dying from suicide than actual fighting and battle really highlights the issue here. Anyways, my win is that I think there's a lot of women and men in the service and generals. There was a great article from a guy who runs the Air Force Base down in San Antonio this week talking about it in an open, honest conversation

for Veterans Day. I think it's really productive and really wonderful that we're actually having an open, honest conversation about it. Good. And same thing with police officers. Excellent, Scott. That's a really nice thing. Scott, predictions. I'm taking a victory about Michael Bloomberg. There's another one I got right. I can't remember. There was two that I got right. But what's your prediction? I'm doubling down on a prediction. Let me say Pete Buttigieg is leading in the polls in Iowa for the first time this week. So you were right about this stuff coalescing. Well, I'm sorry.

Repeat that, Kara. I'm sorry. What was that? Pete Buttigieg is leading in polls in Iowa for the first time this week. And things are coalescing around him. It's moving towards him. And when did the dog stick his nose in the air and make that prediction? When Pete—

Months ago. Months ago. And so let's be clear. Months ago. So let's be clear. Months ago. Unless, so let's be clear. Let's double down on that. The surprise winner, the surprise winner of Iowa is going to be Mayor Pete. All right.

And then New Hampshire? I don't have enough visibility into that. New Hampshire. He's doing well there, too. New Hampshire takes pride. As soon as someone is about to win in Iowa, New Hampshireans are like, this is our one moment every four years to let people know New Hampshire exists. And they like to go a little gangster and a little contrarian.

And they'll say, well, we can't pick that person because we need to be in the news cycle for our three minutes every four years. And they also see themselves as rebels. They're like, we're so not different. We want to be different. And they kind of do something different. So I don't know about New Hampshire. But look, Mayor Pete wins the Democratic Iowa caucus. All right.

Okay. Well, I think the entrance of Deval Patrick is problematic for Elizabeth Warren. They are allies in Massachusetts. That ruins—that sort of moves her off of her game. And then, obviously, Bloomberg is a problem for Biden. So, yeah, you're right. He's moving through the center. He's—like, what does a horse do?

They move through the center. Like, he runs—I don't know about—you know, and they run through up to the center. No idea what you're talking about. No idea what you're talking about. Nonetheless, he's taking advantage of this situation. I think this will be really interesting. I really like his campaign manager, Ms. Smith. Senator Warren's problem, Professor Warren, who I think is fantastic and smart, her problem is that America is coming to the realization that free healthcare, free college, that at the end of the day, I think what a lot of the Democrats candidates have mistaken is that America believes, the populace here believes in winners and losers. And that's a tough thing

to say, but we believe in winners and losers. We just don't believe in the hunger games that has emerged. And I think that the Democratic Party has pivoted too far left to say, well, there aren't going to be any winners and losers. But by the way, did you see that article estimating what the wealth of Bill Gates, Bezos would be had her wealth tax? Yeah, a lot less. It was literally like Bezos was $30 billion instead of $150. I thought that was really interesting that just 2% a year basically cuts everyone's wealth in half repeatedly. Yeah, I was at a dinner party with someone who was there in Washington, but it was someone visiting from Kentucky.

And sort of was like, they were like, I don't take away their money. They didn't want, like, it was really interesting to get a different person. They couldn't stand the guy who lost, Matt Bevin, but which, you know, which was, they were talking a lot. It was fascinating to hear like thoughts from Kentucky from that race. But the reason they liked Andy Beshear was he talked

about health care. He talked, trying to figure, maybe everyone can't have universal health care. We've got to think about how to do the health care system in a way that everybody

does get universal in a way that's affordable rather than make these horrible trade-offs for poor people. We've got to get, the idea of it is absolutely fantastic. It's how we get there, whether it's by public option or some other way. But the way it's currently configured, the poor get screwed.

And not just the poor, everyone gets screwed. So it's nothing wrong with saying we should think about giving everybody health care. And how can we do this? We should think about getting everybody affordable education. It's just a question of how to do it and without, you know, and without having, facilitating the rich and getting the rich to pay more taxes, which they have to do. Definitely, definite equity there. But I think people are kind of, I mean, just as an example, that free college is nothing but a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. The rich can

afford college and the majority of people in college are the rich. So, free college. College should be cheaper. Like you say, college should not, they shouldn't have these luxury brands. Like, Harvard should not be. I'm looking at the college things with my kid, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And it probably should be very expensive for Kara Swisher because she gets paid a lot of money to go to Melbourne. Yeah, it's really expensive. But it's still even, I do make a lot of money. But I was like, wow, that's a lot of money. It's like a lot of money. The dog needs his Iams food.

It's crazy. It's a crazy money. Okay, I have to pay. My kid wants – people who don't know, my kid wants to go to NYU. And so I'm a little bit nervous about him being near Scott Galloway. That'll be awesome. Proximity to Scott Galloway. That'll be awesome.

He'll come over and we'll watch The Mandalorian together. Please, please don't do any Felicity. You can write him a nice note, but no Felicity Huffman action on my part because I'll get dragged into your scandal. Okay? Let's be clear. Aunt Becky is going to prison. She's going to the big house. No trouble.

She's going to the big house. No trouble on my part because I will be dragged into a scandal with you and then it will be the end of everything. Okay. On that note, we have to close. It's time to go. We love our listener mail. Please keep questions, requests, suggestions coming into our inbox. We can be reached at pivot at voxmedia.com.

Scott, why don't you read the credits? So, Cara, today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Also, thanks to Rebecca Castro, Drew Burrows, and Nishat Kerouac. Make sure you've subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts. And if you like this week's episode, leave us a review. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI.

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