Pivot - CEO wealth surge, Apple/Facebook tensions heat up, and Friend of Pivot DoorDash COO Christopher Payne

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about how CEOs in the United States wealth has surged during the pandemic as compared to their workers. Meanwhile, tensions heat up between Tim Cook at Apple and Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, as iPhone users are given the option to opt-out of ad tracking. Then we are joined by Friend of Pivot, DoorDash COO Christopher Payne who talks about the company's new model for food delivery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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of the Bose Corporation. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And who is the hostess with the mostest? Scott Galloway. Let's be honest. Over and over was your family who came and visited mine.

Over and over, let's be honest, were you constantly asking yourself, how can someone so masculine be so lovely? How can he be so lovely? No, I was thinking is your wife is amazing. And now I understand the whole equation of how it works out for Scott Galloway. That's what I thought. Oh my God. Okay. So some key moments, key highlights from the weekend. Key moments. Gotta give the fans what they want.

Okay, good. Gotta feed the ducks here. Yeah. From moment one. I wear a lot of makeup, but go ahead. The Swisher family comes in and in walks the golden child, like little 18 pounds of magic. That is the most beautiful little girl. I know.

Happy. No idea how you had anything to do with that. No, nothing. Don't understand the mechanics. Don't need to understand the mechanics. I created her from sand of the beach, but go ahead. And then, in contrast, in walks this Clydesdale white LeBron, who is also your son. I mean, he's the most enormous human I have ever...

He is. We had to wax his arms to get him through the door. He's a big guy. I'm like, we're going to need a bigger house. Yeah, yeah. This kid is enormous. Enormous. And my favorite moment.

My favorite moment of the weekend. Him falling asleep on the entire couch, your giant couch. My favorite moment. We all decide after a lovely day on Friday. A lovely day. By the way, who takes you to the Boca Bash for a Trump rally? The dog. I know.

Thank you so much. The Confederate flags were something to see. A lovely. I have to say. It was so Florida. It was so Florida. All you kept saying was, I'm not going in on the water. Is that a QAnon flag?

Anyways. I'm not going in the water. Anyway. Anyways. We decide after a lovely night. A lovely day. We get dinner. We decide to watch something on Netflix in Palm Beach

where you guys wouldn't take off your masks. That was very comforting. Yeah, okay. Anyways, we're back at Chateau Dog. Yeah. And we decide, and I'm like, all right, I trust you, and I like you guys enough. I'll let you pick the Netflix program.

Yeah. We're all sitting down watching Netflix, right? And then all of a sudden, your son comes and sits down and we all pop into the air about a foot. I mean, Jesus Christ, that's a big fucking human. He is. And we can't see over his size 45 sneakers. I'm like, dude, can you get your sneakers out of the way? And what are the Swishers pick? Jordans, by the way, but go ahead. What are the Swishers pick? What?, by the way, but go ahead. What are the Swishers pick? What?

The great Boston art heist. And then I realized I'm drinking tea, and suddenly I came to this really weird realization. You're a lesbian. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm a lesbian. You're a lesbian. I'm the second most famous male lesbian right behind Lindsey Graham. I'm going for number one. And I started thinking I couldn't focus on this woke shit we were watching.

I'm like, am I Meritor Baxter Burney or am I Kelly McGillis? Who am I? Let me take you to my side of the picture. Scott's wife is superb. His kids are lovely. It's kind of shocking. A lot of us kept saying of the family was we had meetings when you were not there. We were like, how does he get such a nice group of people to hang out with him, first of all? Money, mostly money. It's a beautiful home. They're very, like the refrigerator is full of healthy foods. It's crazy. It was not a junk food Nary in sight. None of his counters, is that you or your wife? The counters have nothing on them. They're beautiful. What was going on there with that? The counters? Who cleans the counters? No appliances anywhere.

Everything's hidden. It was beautiful. I like that Northern European kind of OCD look. It was aesthetic. He has a beautiful house. It's very healthy. It feels,

it doesn't, it's not, you'd imagine it to be a party zone, but it's not. I'm very uncomfortable with this. I'd rather be known as a faculty member living in faculty housing.

Okay. With newspapers piling up everywhere. No. You have a very lovely, woke life. You're more woke. It was a very San Francisco experience, actually. Oh, that hurts. I'm just saying.

That hurts. It is also beautiful. And it is also, it was a very, you were an excellent host. You were the hostess with the mostest, I have to say. I wanted to impress Amanda. You, not so much. No, I know that. And giant boy.

Jesus Christ. They worked out together too. Seriously, Venmo me about $11 million for the crap that that guy ate. Oh my God. He didn't stop eating. He didn't stop eating. It's really crazy, isn't it? It's crazy. That kid. He ate all your food. He kept getting thirds. Well, your wife's also a beautiful cook. Let me just also add, we had a lovely time in Miami visiting venues, right? We looked at a lot of stuff. And we're looking at Miami for a pivot event. For a pivot con. We can't decide where to go.

We know we want it to be louche. We know we want unfortunate things to happen there. But I think Miami's perfect. It's a perfect venue for us, don't you think? We didn't get to meet the mayor, although I interviewed him this morning, the mayor of First Way. How was he? He was very Suarez. Yeah, very Suarez. He was very Francis Suarez. I got to tell you, I first thought he was a lightweight, but he's not a lightweight. He's not a lightweight. He's got some things going on. I really enjoy talking to him. I thought he

was very smart. I thought he was a super smart guy. I think he's a comer. I think he's a comer. I do too. If he can get through to the Trumpers, he's very anti-Trump, I would say. He's surprisingly anti-Trump and much less interested. Scott, I now understand why you live in Florida, I have to say. Oh, look, it's easy to make fun of, but the reality is the quality of life is really powerful. I mean, it loses all its charm once you get about 10 meters from the water and if you actually meet anyone from Florida. But other than that, it's a wonderful place to live. It's really... Yeah, but there was a hopefulness to

it. There was a like... There was a lot of like we went to dinner in Palm Beach Place and it was kind of ridiculous. Like the sort of faux partying, the performative this and that is very Los Angeles that way. But that's sort of Trumpville. But I have to say there's an energy to it that is definitely uh interesting it's a really and it's it's not quite as conservative

like we saw a lot of masking it's a very complex place it's a complex place it's purple and it's really there's a lot of it feels very uh latin it feels very next generation It feels very next generation. It feels very young. And it was very Scott Galloway. Scott, you were- Well, you know, I'm almost none of those things. But anyways, especially DeSantis, we'll say. He's running president. This is Ron DeSantis, governor. And you know what his tagline is, literally? What?

His new tagline is, Make America Florida. Florida is, I mean, you have to acknowledge, and I immediately have a gag reflex around this, but Florida over the last year has probably been the best or the least bad, or one of the least bad places to be through this crisis because the reality or the data reflects that people paid or people feel as if they paid a lower price in terms of altering their lifestyle. And the numbers, the economy, mortalities, infection rates- Yeah, employment.

Are not terrible. And so people look to Florida and think, I mean, just in general, you look at people moving down there, it's like a better quality of life. Florida, you know, Florida, look, Florida's a comer. If you could go long, if states were stocks, you'd want to go long Florida right now. It was interesting. I moved you know, Florida, look, Florida's a comer. If you could go long, if states were stocks, you'd want to go long Florida right now. I moved there 10 years ago and it's been wonderful

for us. I feel very grateful. You know, something that Mayor Suarez said is, I asked him because he was against the mask. He was for the mask mandates and a lot of the mayors fought with Governor DeSantis. And I said, what do you think of how it came out for him? He goes, he took a really big chance and it came out for him, but it could have not. You know what I mean? And he goes, so, and I was also on the side of public health people who thought one death, if you can prevent one death of this, and he decided the opposite way. And he said, it might not have happened that way. So he was sort of, he was sort of right in the middle of the idea of that, that he thought it was irresponsible. And that just because it

worked out for him when his way was not necessarily, may have been the seniors staying home. It may have been a lot of things. It's an interesting place, I have to say. But one thing I want to ask you is how do you think our relationship is now? What do you think? It's hard to imagine we could have become closer, but I think that happened. I think that happened. We got along rather well. There was no fighting. You were just marching around the house screaming into your phone the whole time. We didn't really get a chance to. I was not.

Do they know who I am? And you're staring into a phone. No, I was not. I was not. You'd be like, he's a fucking psychopath. She's a lesbian. He's a fucking psychopath. That's what I kept hearing over and over

as you were yelling into your phone. I left your house neat. I liked the Airbnb aspect of it. It was lovely. I'm just saying. I feel closer to you. The golden child. Leave that little girl behind.

No, you may not have. You should have some more children. That's my feeling on that. No, some of us, when we're 80, decide to close shop. Okay. Nonetheless, it was a great time. Tony Randall. We are going back to Miami.

Sultan of Calorama. We had a good time. I feel we are closer in some weird way. I do. I do feel closer to you. We are going back to Miami. Sultan of Calorama. We had a good time. I feel we are closer in some weird way. I do. I do feel closer. We got along rather well. It was surprising. I was expecting much more fireworks, but it didn't happen.

Other thing, did you watch the Oscars last night after I left while you were sad? Yeah, and I got to be honest. I thought they did a really wonderful job of capturing what it's like to be trapped in. You hated the Golden Globes. You hated all the other award shows. capturing what it's like to be trapped in. Interesting. You hated the Golden Globes. You hated all the other award shows. I thought they did a wonderful job of really capturing the vibe of what it's like to be trapped in a train station for three hours. I see. You're going to insult them. I mean, come on. The moment was like,

all right, Chad Boseman is going to get the Academy Award for a lot of reasons, and they give it to the old white guy, and everyone's like, this is awkward. a lot of reasons. And they give it to the old white guy and everyone's like, this is awkward. And he's not even there. He's off like doing TikToks where he's singing to his cat or something. And that to me is just like, oh my God, boom, signature, close it up now. It was a little too close in with the Hollywood people. It wasn't glamorous. It was like, wait, I don't like to see this. No one cares about what they think or say. We want to see Brad Pitt. We want to see gorgeous Brad Pitt, and we want to see

Christina Aguilera do the Disney song that's up for whatever best song. Minus glamour, Hollywood is not great. I have to tell you. It was problematic. First of all, I didn't watch it. Did you watch it? I just can't wait until the ratings come in because it's going to be hilarious.

Amanda tried, and I wanted to watch The Nevers. No, I was not interested. I was not interested. I wasn't even slightly interested. Because most of the movies people hadn't seen, too. That's the other thing. The other big takeaway is Frances McDormand should be Supreme Allied Commander. No one would ever fuck with the U.S. if she was in charge.

I am so scared of her. My God. Yeah. She is like confidence in charge. I am so scared of her. My God. Yeah. She is like confidence with a swirl or a floaty of confidence. Yeah. My God. I'm like, just put her in charge. Yes, it's true.

Jesus. She speaks with such authority. She should be put in charge. She should be put in charge. She's really good. So, what's interesting is that it was so lacking glamour. That's all I have to say. Anyway, by the way, on Thursday-

What, a train station? Yes, exactly. Tesla's expected to post record earnings this week. Just so you know, we're going to talk about it on Thursday. Elon Musk will also be co-hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8th. Anyway, we're going to be live- Yeah, I've never so badly looked forward to seeing a really talented person, i.e. Miley Cyrus.

I mean, we have had- Come on, this is such bullshit. You got mad about that. Oh, God. You were tweeting away. Now he's invaded SNL? Mm-hmm. Make him stop, Kara.

You know him. Make him stop. Tell him to have some self-awareness. I like it. I like it. I think it's going to be funny. I think he's the only one they could have had on. There was no other tech CEO.

But why would they have any? Because he's Elon. He's transcended everything else. Okay. It makes sense. It makes sense. Let's get the CEO of Dow Corning on next week. No, not the same.

I've got to tune in for that. You're wrong. You're wrong. This is going to be either really bad or really good. That's the way it's going to be. I'm taking the over-under on really bad. You couldn't have Zuckerberg up there. Zuckerberg was on there once just to appear at the beginning of a guy who played him in

Social Network. But no, it's going to be good. I'm going to go for yes on it. Sorry. You watch, so you know what is going to happen when he's on? What? You know what is going to happen? What?

Doja Coin is going to go up 10% within 24 hours of him. I'll say Doja. They'll do an SNL skit on crypto, on Doja Coin. And the awareness and everyone will be like, oh, I'll buy a little. And on a company with a $35 billion, whatever it is, it'll send Dogecoin. It'll make Dogecoin even more volatile in the 48 hours. Anyway.

Yeah, there we go. All right, Scott, on to big stories. Let's check in on the CEOs of the world. Despite the economic downturns of the pandemic, many of the hardest hit companies' CEOs saw huge increases in wealth and payment. According to New York Times, despite Boeing's record bad year, Chief Executive David Calhoun made $21.1 million in compensation. The cruise industry all but halted in the past year,

but Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Frank Del Rio doubled his pay to $36.4 million. Bloomberg reports that eight of the ten wealthiest people in the United States are men who founded or run tech companies in the United States. They've all grown billions of dollars richer, as we've talked about this year, including Elon Musk, especially Elon Musk. Chief executives of big companies now make, on average,

320 times as much as your typical worker. We had a lot of deep talks this week. One of them was about income inequality. What do you think of this? This is your big thematic situation here. This is awful. And it's kind of the mother of all moral hazard because I saw this at the New York Times when our stock went down to three bucks. I saw this when Mickey Drexler was saying how bad business was to try and drive down the value as he was partnering with banks to try and take his own company private such that he could get at a lower price.

But the gangster move, if you're a CEO, is to have an exogenous event, literally stuff every piece of bad news into the earnings, take the stock way down at the expense of your retail shareholders, and then go back to the board and say, this isn't my fault. I'm obviously the one I know where the bodies are buried. I can save us here. Make sure the government is there to write you a check financed by future generations to make sure that the company doesn't go bankrupt, these airlines should have been allowed to go bankrupt and wipe out the equity, but instead they get propped up under the auspices of saving jobs and they don't touch zero. And then what is the CEO and the comp committee that likes the CEO and likes to get paid a quarter of a million dollars to have dinner and hang out with them every 12 weeks? They issue them a shit ton of options and then they make a shit ton of money when the stock recovers from near zero. So what do we have here? We have an environment where we are incentivizing CEOs to take these companies almost out of business such that the stock goes down, they get a shit ton. I remember when I was on the board

of the New York Times and the stock hit three bucks in the recession and all of a sudden the management team became very fond of the idea of more equity compensation to give them a vested interest management team became very fond of the idea of more equity compensation to give them a vested interest. And they all made tens of millions of dollars in the recovery. And at least that was taking risk because we could have gone out of business. The government wasn't going to step in. They were just going to step in and save the banks.

They weren't saving media companies. But now the government has decided to step in and save every company such that we can inflate the wealth of the 1%. And this is ground zero for it. And what do we have? I was just listening to Joe Lonsdale on CNBC talking about the surge in Bitcoin. He said it's a reaction to the crazy government bailing everybody out. He was interesting.

He was like, if the government's going to be crazy, why are you calling us crazy? Why are we calling Bitcoin and everything else? It's a reaction to that. I think it's young people wanting volatility. One interesting stat is more black people have purchased Bitcoin than white people, despite being dramatically fewer numbers. Because I think when populations feel like, okay, the game is just rigged against us, we want volatility. We want to find different asset classes and we want volatility because clearly the game is rigged against us. But anyways, this is really... And people immediately go, well, what's the solution? I'm not sure there is a solution because this is what happens on boards.

The comp committee basically says, all right, let's pay them a little bit more than average. And that ends up in this exponential effect where their compensation just skyrockets and their multiple of the average worker has gone from 60 to 350 CEOs. I think you've just got to increase tax rates because I'm not sure you're ever going to be able to get rid of this dynamic. To stop this from happening. So what about the average U.S. citizen? One of the things, we had a very interesting discussion about colleges

and this idea of creating these false scarcity and this and that, but how does the average citizen who doesn't get to play this game that these people get, the net 320 times as much as the typical worker. That is an astonishing number. It used to be like, what, 10 or 12? I think it was about 50. It's gone exponential.

Look, what hurts even more is the tax rates they're going to pay on this equity if they exercise their options and they held the equity for longer. And Norwegian Cruise Lines, which is headquartered, I think, in the great state of Florida, the CEO will pay 22.8% versus the people that got laid off were paying probably 30% or 40% effective tax rates. So not only do we have... I mean, it's just, again, everything we do in our society right now has one aim. Let's take money from the young.

Let's take money from a younger generation who tends to be more gender balanced, who tends to have more people of color. And let's transfer wealth from them to older people. It's just everything we do. And the CO compensation is so out of control at this point. And I don't know. The market dynamics make it very difficult to cap it. And there's some wonderful things about capitalism. Taxing.

Take their taxes up. Why on earth are they paying? I mean, it's one thing if they make tons of money. Well, they're discussing that, getting rid of capital gains. That's right. That's right. Who loves that idea? Who loves that idea?

Scott Galloway, I'm guessing. That's right. That's right. Who has an informal role in the cabinet? They just don't know it yet. They just don't know it yet. Really? No, you don't.

Anyway, it's a very interesting time. Really, you're right. The capital gains thing will be an interesting debate. I think the Biden people will bring it up and then eliminate some of those other things, the amount of estate taxes sort of advantaging rich people. But still, I think it's a trend that will continue, and we have to deal with this.

You know who's really angry about the whole CEO comp thing? Who? Stephanie Rohl called, rang my ear. Like, I was one of these. Like, I was the CEO of a cruise line. She's like, you know what? This fucking bullshit. And I'm like, yeah.

I kind of like it when she calls me and is angry at me. I can't lie. I kind of like it. But I'm like, I'm not. I don't. Do you see me running a cruise line? Yeah, Stephanie Ruhl, woman of the people. That's how I think of her.

Anyway, we're going to go to a quick break. She's smart. She's smart and angry. Not a woman of the people. We'll how I think of her. Anyway, we're going to go to a quick break. She's smart. She's smart and angry. Not a woman of the people. We'll be back to talk more. She's a Jersey girl. What are you talking about?

I get that. Okay, whatever. You don't buy it. You guys are way away from your original. You don't buy it. I'm the one that started off rich. My counters are clean.

I started off rich and they are clean. They're incredible. They're very clean. It's beautiful. They're beautiful. I love them. I went back to my house

and I was like, I hate my counters. All right, let's go on a quick break. My tiny house. We'll be back to talk more escalating tensions between Apple and Facebook and friend of Pivot on the online food delivery service. I brought you someone you wanted to talk to, Scott. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night.

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Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Okay, we are back. Apple is planning to unveil a new privacy feature that would require iPhone users to explicitly choose whether to let apps like Facebook or track their information. This is a long time coming.

It's the longtime brewing war between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. They've been at odds over privacy issues in recent years, especially since forever, for now. The story in the New York Times actually was quite good. It began with Tim Cook telling Mark Zuckerberg not to be such an information thief, essentially. They met because he was getting his advice and Mark was trying to be nice and Tim wasn't having any of it, didn't want to be his friend. Facebook's $70

billion digital advertising business is built on the ability to follow people's online habits as they click through other apps such as Spotify or Amazon and then market directly to users. This pits the two men's visions of the future of the internet at odds. Tim Cook wants safer, more private, but more likely expensive internet, while Mark

Zuckerberg believes more free and open content. They're trying to say Tim is trying to kill small businesses. Tim and Apple said, no, we're not. So, and they're both facing antitrust scrutiny at the federal level. So, what do you think about this? You know, I want you to run with this. You know them better than I do. And I think you know the situation.

I think they don't like each other, personally. I don't think, you know, say it's not personal. I think it don't like each other, personally. I don't think, you know, say it's not personal. I think it's personal. I think that Tim and Apple, back to Steve Jobs, really disdains the way Mark conducts his business, and he wants them to stop doing it. And so they're putting in place, because Mark did not, neglected to get a phone.

And we talked about this, them buying LG or stuff like that. Mark neglected to get a phone, and so this is their way to control them. And so it is a great way to control them, and they're not having any of it. And I think the idea of putting it out there pretty simply, consumers should decide if they want to be tracked or not, is a real problem for Facebook. I think they'll probably be okay because people have inertia,

but it's a real, I think there is a lot of anger between, not anger on Apple's part. Apple is like, ugh, disdain. And the people at Facebook are mad and think he's a scold and this and that. But he's going right at their business plan. What do you think? Well, like anything that hurts Facebook is kind of all right in my eyes. But it's very interesting.

You summarize it. Apple wants a world where you pay. Mm-hmm. You basically can get it. I mean, Android and Facebook are sort of the advertising industrial complex meets sociopathy meets data tracking meets Google meets Facebook is a really compelling value proposition. And that is you get the processing power of the space shuttle and just staggering utility for free. The argument that people make around whenever they talk about, there's some wonderful things about the 20th century, morality, we care

about animals, racial justice, some things we never would have talked about 100 years ago. And then in the same breath, people will say that the poorest citizen lives better than the wealthiest citizen 100 years ago, which I think is a bit of an exaggeration, but I think you can make a legitimate argument that a person who's solidly middle class has a better life than very, very wealthy people just 100 years ago. And a lot of it has to come down to the liberation of the incredible utility of technology. And the technology you get for free, or you can get for free with a combination of Google, Android, Facebook, and these apps is staggering, but there's just no getting around it. It comes at other non-economic costs. But there's still going to be a big

population of people that want... I mean, it's very easy for us to fall in love with a paid app economy, right? Because these payments, 11 bucks a month or whatever it is, or 20, or now people are, I think, spending about 80 bucks a month on subscriptions or on apps

and then 150 on subscriptions. Easy for us to say, right? We can pretend that we care about our privacy. Except why not come up with an innovative business thing? Like, he's just, I think Apple's just saying to them,

it doesn't have to be paid necessarily. It's just, the CEO of Nextdoor was like, great, we'll do it. We'll do it. Come to us for advertising. We're local. We can get you people.

And we don't have to invade your privacy. We don't have to do it in these sneaky ways. I think Tim Cook was like, if you want to track people on your platform, that's fine. But not all over the frigging internet, which is what Facebook does. I think that's really what's going on. frigging internet, which is what Facebook does. I think that's really what's going on. From a business perspective, in my opinion, this illuminates the power of controlling the end consumer interface. If you're not vertical, if you don't control the end hardware that delivers the content, you're vulnerable. I think Netflix is vulnerable. Disney is vulnerable. And to a

certain extent, Facebook is vulnerable. I mean, it really is content versus distribution. And Apple is flexing their distribution muscles. We control the end access, the piece of hardware and the software for the billion wealthiest people on the planet. And it's going to be – and also, it's easy for Nextdoor to say because they haven't made the staggering multibillion-dollar investment in tracking. And I can't believe I'm defending Facebook. People say they get creeped out by ads. I don't mind Facebook creeping me out. I think more relevant ads, I kind of like it. I think I like that. Yeah, well, that's one argument that they can make that argument. I like the ads I get on Instagram. I like the fact if I'm at a Beyonce concert and

they serve me an ad for the Beyonce, I like that. What I don't like is the fact that these individuals continually lie and delay and obfuscate and do things that damage our country and depress our teens. But the investment they've made in innovation around advertising, like delivering the right out of the right time, next door, you know, they can't even like, they're not in the same neighborhood. They're not next door to that technology. Of course. No, no. But here's the deal. They could, one of the things that I think Facebook, they're trying to get all these

small business owners to complain. Like I now can't afford it if I can't afford Facebook. You know, if people opt out and Facebook was quoting a figure that 60% of revenues will decline for these small businesses. And then Harvard is like, that is a big lie. Of course, Facebook immediately puts out a wrong statistic to make it seem incredibly dire. And then they roll out these people.

What I think it just shows is, wow, they only have two choices, Google and Facebook, and mostly Facebook. So that sucks. So it just points out to me how big and strong Facebook is, and why did they control the entire online ecosystem in advertising? I'm like, that's the problem with small businesses. They have no choices but you. Well, not at all, but Apple gets to make small businesses. They have no choices but you.

Well, not at all. But Apple gets to make the decisions around the technology, around their end users. I mean, I don't see— Yes, but I think Facebook has more of a stranglehold on online advertising. And maybe they shouldn't. Maybe there should be more choices. Maybe other people should innovate. Because the problem these small businesses have isn't that Apple's suddenly opting to let people make a choice, which I think ultimately, I don't really care what any of happens at Facebook.

If the consumers can just choose, let the consumers choose. And then that's where we'll end up. But to your point, let's talk a little bit about choice. Choice connotes that you would have a more healthy ecosystem and there'd be a number of players. Facebook and Google's duopoly dominance of the digital ad dollar has gone from about, I think about 63 cents on the dollar pre-pandemic to now it's around 80 cents. And then there's a third player that controls another 10 cents.

Do you know who that is? What, Amazon? Amazon. So we have three players, Amazon, Google, and Facebook that control 90% of the final frontier of branding, marketing, targeting, programmatic media. That's just not a healthy ecosystem. No, it's not. So let people choose, all right?

They don't get a choice. Facebook is underscoring by tracking out all these small business people because they don't have a choice to buy anywhere else. They don't have any other choices. No, look. I'm sorry, Kara, I keep interrupting you. I'm caffeinated. I'm coming off this great weekend with great friends. Here's the deal. We don't have choices.

I think this is perfectly fine for Apple to do. Facebook can squeal like a stuck pig. Just, you know, I don't know. People will either decide or not, and frankly, they'll probably win through inertia. That's an insult to the other white meat. Okay, listen. Either people will decide or not and probably facebook will be fine because inertia is a very strong energy source on this planet

and they'll just go click yes sure track me whatever but at least let them pick pick their poison that's all i say what i'd be surprised if they get to pick i think i think we're going to be shocked at how few people opt out opt out right i'm sorry at how few people opt out. Opt out, right. I'm sorry, at how few people opt out. I think people talk a big game about their privacy, and they don't clear their cookies. They don't. Young people decide every day to make the tradeoff

between a lack of privacy and utility. They're like, I'm sure as long as I- Yeah, but why doesn't Facebook want the question even asked? Even if they will. I think it's in defense. They have no choice. Apple has made an enormous investment in hardware and access to the consumer, and they get to control that stuff. And I don't understand what Facebook's argument is. And the notion of a tax is something that, okay, a tax is negative, but it's supposed to help society. When you have every small business in America can't establish competitive advantage by using Google or Facebook,

but everybody pays it, it's no longer a business investment, it's a tax. Look, I think the biggest tax cut in history will be breaking up Google and Facebook and reducing their ability to impose rents on small business. Yeah, agree. All right, we'll see what happens in the Mark versus Tim contest. Let's bring on our friend of Pivot, Scott. Christopher Payne is the Chief Operating

Officer at DoorDash. You had requested an online food delivery person, and I am delivering him to you for lots of questions. This week, DoorDash... He laughs. He laughs. Just wait. This week, DoorDash announcing new pricing changes. Beginning this week, all U.S. local restaurants will have a choice of three different delivery partnership plans,

starting with a 15% commission option. Let's start with that. Let's start with, and you also settled a $2.5 million lawsuit that alleged the company misled consumers to believe tipping would increase workers' pay. So why don't you start with that, Chris? Talk about the two things that happened. All right. So, Scott, it's nice to meet you. We haven't met before, but thank you both for hosting me. So today's announcement is a very important one because we're offering small businesses more choice.

I think one of the things that's happened during the pandemic is we've had to spring into action and make lots of changes. I think that's one of the constant themes. We've had an initiative called Main Street Strong throughout the last 13 months where we've, you know, we did commission relief at the beginning, Kara, where we did $120 million commission relief for restaurants. We then, in the fall, began to shift into trying to promote pickup to get more in-store. We were learning as we were going. We also built a product called Storefront. 40% of restaurants going into the pandemic didn't have

their own digital ordering platform. And so this is a version of DoorDash that's white labeled that they can use. So today's announcement essentially gives restaurants more choice over the prices that they pay. So there's three components to the announcement. One, instead of one package that's 30% with everything bundled in. Which is what people complained about, right? Right. The people were saying that you were just sort of just taking all their money, essentially. Well, the thing to remember is that, obviously, delivery is a cost-intensive service, right?

Dashers need to be compensated. And so what we did is we bundled for the small business, they basically had everything. They had the marketing programs, they basically had everything. They had the marketing programs, DashPass, our subscription program. We've now broken that apart. And so there's a 15% version. We call it the basic package, which essentially allows the restaurant to be on the platform to offer the service. But more of the fees for the order go to the consumer. So it'll be lower volume than the Max marketing program, but a great choice for merchants

that may want to drive more profitability or frankly right now might not have enough staff or capacity. There's definitely trends that are happening in the market right now. The second is plus, which is 25%. You get inclusion in the Dash Pass, our subscription product for that. The way to think about that is you're lowering consumer fees in exchange for more growth and promotion. And then the final package, the 30% tier is the premier package, which includes DashPass, but it also includes an expanded radius so you can increase your service area. It also comes with a growth guarantee. If you don't do 20 transactions on DoorDash in a month, all your sales that do occur below 20 are commission free.

So that's one part of the announcement. You never have to pay 30% again, Kara, if you don't want to. free. So that's one part of the announcement. You never have to pay 30% again, Kara, if you don't want to. And then the second part of the announcement is storefront. Storefront has just exploded. And this is a way for restaurants to have their own channel, to own the customer relationship. Obviously, behind the scenes- So that you don't insert yourself, this gatekeeper role. Scott, go ahead. First off, nice to meet you, Christopher. Thanks for being here. I look at your business and I think, wow, this is a great story from a market capitalization standpoint, huge market capitalization right out of the gates. And obviously, COVID has sort of wind in the sails of folks who want to eat more at home. Your stock's down though since it's down about, I think it's up

about 19% since the IPO. And when I look at your competitors, I see, including you, I see SG&A at 53%, DoorDash, I see it about 53% at Uber. And then I see Domino's at 10%. And my big rap is that you're just an advantage when you're vertical. In other words, you produce food and deliver it. At the end of the day, how do you get your SG&A and your cost down to a point where this company can generate the profits that your market capitalization sort of indicates now? It just feels like you and the other delivery guys are slowly putting each other out of business. How do the economics here, how do you maintain or get to any sort of margin power against the other big guys in delivery? Yeah, I mean, this is definitely, Scott, a scale play.

You know, you all know my background. I was at Amazon for a period of time. And DoorDash is similar in some respects and different in others. is similar in some respects and different in others. The way to think about it is that the more volume you get in an area, the more dashers you can have, the more engaged they are, the more efficient they are, the better the economics flow. This was one of the core reasons I joined the company is we have markets that we started eight years ago, right?

And so you can see that vintage of market and you can compare it to one we launched last week, right? And all of the points in between, right? We cover 85% of Americans now. And so the way to think about it is that our older markets, those like Palo Alto, San Jose, Houston, Atlanta, et cetera, have reached profitability. Houston, Atlanta, et cetera, have reached profitability. And yet we've gone into, expanded into lots and lots of suburbs. One day a couple of years ago, I got a note saying we're now dashing in Owensboro, Kentucky, where I am born and raised. And it kind of hit me that we were going to be everywhere. And now we are launching cities that are 15,000 populations

doing hundreds of deliveries a night. And so you've got a core business- But is it long tail? I mean, you've got three really well-capitalized players in this business and it looks like you guys are just beating the shit out of each other to be blunt. How do you, again, get margin power? Is it going after smaller cities? Is it additional services? I think if you look at our financials and you see the trend lines over time, you'll see that we're demonstrating over time the economies of scale. You saw in our numbers, we did reach gap profitability in Q2 of last year. And you'll continue to see I believe over time improve improvements and profitability but it is what I said it is it is more scale better economics

and then that's one component right and then if you look at other lines of business that we're having things like storefront and others you see us sort of now that we have 450,000 small business and large business relationships across the United States, you see us increasingly offer more merchant services. So for example, DoorDash Drive, back in 2016, we opened up our logistics platform to power other people's demand. So when you order on Chipotle.com, or you order grocery from Walmart, So when you order on Chipotle.com or you order grocery from Walmart or general merchandise from Walmart, behind the scenes, we're fueling that with our logistics capability the complaints is that people felt like they just had a one size fits all and they were getting jammed when they didn't want it or buying things they didn't want

or paying for things they didn't want. Do you have, I mean, if you got into food, you'd be competing with the very, presumably running ghost kitchens, et cetera. You'd be competing with the very people you were trying to attract in this, with this new announcement. Yeah. Our, our, our, our whole, you know, origin of the company, what we focus on is building services for merchants. You all have talked to Tony in the past, you know, he knows his mom was a small restaurateur.

And you know, one of the things I'm most proud of is that restaurants that were partnered with DoorDash during the pandemic are eight times more likely to still be in business than ones that were not. And that's not to say that everything's rosy and that restaurants don't want changes. One of the hallmarks of the last year has been listening to restaurants and adapting based on what we're learning. And this announcement today, you're right. Restaurants do want more choice. Some restaurants want more profitability. Storefront and the basic package allow you to do that. I also didn't mention earlier that we've taken our pickup rate from 15% and we've lowered it to 6%. I think this is a huge

win for merchants because one of the things they're concerned with is one of the most profitable channels they have is people that walk up to the counter, the to-go business. Now, essentially, payment processing is included in that 6%. So, for 3% additional, you're getting access to the 20-plus million monthly actives on DoorDash. So, that's the other component. To get more people in the door. That's the other component. To get people in the door. So, let's talk about the lawsuit settlement. This is another sort of the stain on not just you, but a lot of these delivery services, using these workers, not Amazon, everyone, how they use workers.

In your case, the tipping controversy sort of blew up. So talk about how your tipping model has changed. Yeah, you and I talked about this about two years ago. Yeah, you and I talked about this about two years ago. So we had an old Dasher pricing model, that pay model that essentially what we did is we, you know, the way Dashers think about compensation is they take the DoorDash and the tip part and they think about that as their earnings. What we did is we basically topped up, we added on top of orders that didn't have a tip or had a low tip. Dashers loved that. It made more deliveries worth doing for them, and then they would do more deliveries per hour. But the piece that we missed, Kara, is that consumers didn't feel like their tip mattered in that model. And so in the summer to fall of 2019, I altered that.

I completely made the DoorDash component blind to the tip component and we've adjusted the system and made it work for dashers and work for consumers. And so, you know, in all candor, we made a mistake. We made a mistake there in terms of not balancing the needs of the marketplace. And I feel very good about the model we have today. Scott?

So, look, you're a for-profit company, and I'm sure you think about stakeholders, not just shareholders, but obviously shareholders are still at the top or around the top. And if I'm in your shoes, Chris, I immediately think, okay, autonomous driving. The moment I can get to scale or show some sort of scale around autonomous driver delivery or autonomous delivery, the marketplace senses the double click on the scale you're talking about. If I, my cynical self says, you're just biding time until you can show the scale you're talking about. My cynical self says, you're just biding time until you can show the marketplace you're going to be able to replace drivers. And I'm not suggesting that that's not coming for every organization, but what role does autonomous play for DoorDash?

And what's the timeline? Because as you remember, Chris, you may have been there when Travis Kalanick said that famous thing is, as soon as I can get rid of the drivers, I'm going to have a great business, I think, which he sort of said it out loud, the quiet part. So you all know I've been in tech my whole career, Microsoft and elsewhere. And I've been in a weird position related to this autonomous discussion, Scott, because I am bullish on it being impactful in the long term. I'm skeptical that it will be impactful sort of in the sense of replacing the totality of, you know, sort of humans biking and driving. And it's a really hard problem. And the thing I don't like about the way

it works today is people kind of have to solve a level five type problem in order to sort of make it work. And I'm very much come from the school of crawl, walk, run. Like I like to make some progress and then iterate on that. So I think what you'll see, DoorDash has an initiative where we are working on autonomy. I think what you'll see from us is that we'll begin to use autonomy in components of the delivery. I'll give you two examples. So there are lots of places where there's food in one area, and it's difficult to get

the food to where the people are. You know, if you've ever been to San Diego and Coronado Island and you know the divide between the city and the island, it's like, great food, people over here, right? Drones could be fantastic in that line of sight, you can bring the food. But the last 10 feet, that's going to be closed by humans for a long, long time to come. Additionally, I think you'll see maybe routes, you've seen the sidewalk robots and those types of things where you've got restaurant hubs. You might see the main route be done by autonomous vehicles. But again, I think they'll be complementary to the system versus

replacing the system for a long time to come. And in my mind, I'm thinking five to 10 years. So then how do you think about AB5 and delivery drivers? That was pushed a lot by Uber, Lyft, yourselves and others. How do you look at that, where that's coming out? Because there's still, you know, Amazon just won its union thing. There's a lot of heat around employees and drivers, or whether they're workers in Britain. It goes back and forth. How do you look at the bigger landscape of that? Yeah. I mean, this will come as no surprise to you all that I think the Prop 22 was a big win

for drivers. And I think that often people people sort of talk about employment and independent contract work is synonymous and they're not. And I think the Prop 22 results showed that. Remember, dashers dash on average less than four hours a week. 75% of our dashers have another job. You know, what dashers say repeatedly that they love about this work is they get to have flexibility of working, not working, when they want, where they want, and earn additional supplement. And so to me, it's a compliment.

And I think Prop 22 was a major step forward. The fact that it won by nearly two-thirds of the California voters, it protects that flexibility. It guarantees 120% of minimum wage per active hour. It gives a path to healthcare insurance. It is not employment though, right? And I've listened to your podcast, right? And you talk about some of the benefits that are missing. I think we can work together as an industry on that over time. But I also think it's very important to talk about these things

as a third way. It's not pure independent contracting. It's not pure employment. It's a third way. And I think... But let me push back. When you talk about Facebook right now is saying they're there for small businesses. And really, they're there because they're furious that Facebook right now is saying they're there for small businesses. And really they're there because they're furious that Apple is making, forcing them to opt in or opt out, you know, and they, they're using small businesses as their shield for something like that. How do you, the idea that drivers are such a fulminant between workers and these drivers in this subclass of people who are doing this kind of thing, who are doing delivery. And some are just doing a few hours, but others are trying to make a living. Do you imagine that there will be a settlement

where you're not sort of the villains, tip-stealing, surf-having delivery people villains? Where does that, what has to shift? And I'm not saying you are, I just think it's super complex. What has to shift in our thinking about delivery and delivery people? I think restaurants and drivers are successful on DoorDash. The average dasher on DoorDash makes $22 per active hour.

This is when they're working. Can you define what you mean by active? That means that they're on a delivery, right? Okay, but that's not $22 per hour that you're away from your family or actually working, right? Well, it could be even more than that. Realize that that's on DoorDash. I mean, how many Uber and Lyfts have you guys got in and you got the Lyft on the one thing and you got Uber on the other, right? So, all I have visibility into

is the DoorDash component of the delivery. But do I think that some of our drivers are doing Instacart grocery deliveries? You bet they are, right? And in California, Scott, it's Prop 22. If you could wave, I want you to think of something further, is that this all gets reductive on both sides, I think, in a lot of ways. We're here to help you. You're not helping us. If you could wave your wand and say, this is the one thing, what healthcare, what is it? What a new kind of worker designation where people get to, because the pandemic has shown a lot of people are vulnerable, like a lot more vulnerable than they need to be. Is there something you think that needs to be

happen away from you, away from your workers, away from the acrimony that could be created that would be great for these businesses to work in a way that's better for everybody, every person? I do. I do, Kara. I think Prop 22 is an enormous step in the right direction. I think in cities in California, the average dasher is bringing in $30 to $36 per active hour. And Scott, to your question about, you know, what does that mean? I mean, they're not lying idle. I mean, there's lots of deliveries happening in California, right? I think what I would like to see as an industry, I'd love to see federal legislation.

And, you know, we're working very hard to sort of figure out what that future state looks like with legislatures across the country, with policymakers. It'd be great if it were federal. And I think what we're looking for is something that codifies this, that preserves the flexibility, but gives a path to benefits that are across the entirety of the system. And I think we'll be better for it. Okay, I have a last question. And Scott, you can go. As people start to go back in the world

and rely less on delivery, a lot of people feel some of it, like Zoom, you, like all, pandemic's been very, very good to you and others. I don't mean that in an insulting way, but it's really boomed in certain areas where people have to be home. And you were saying now they're having delivery in your area where you grew up. That probably wasn't the case before at all. People just went out and got stuff.

So how do you iterate in that situation? How do you look at that world where people have had this great experiment with delivery? A lot of people are going to stay in it, but what's the downside for you? What is the problem you are most worried about? Well, as I look at it, Kara, I've been working on e-commerce for now and a long time. If you think about when I started Amazon in 98, and I think that one of the things that I fundamentally have believed is that consumer expectations around convenience will only increase with time. And I fundamentally believe, I read your article in New York Times last week, that the pandemic essentially accelerated the trend that was already happening. DoorDash's vision is to connect every local business to every local consumer

and bring them things in minutes, not days, right? That's our fundamental strategy. And the pandemic accelerated that, but it was a trend that existed before that. And in my experience, it doesn't go back. Like at the end of the day, the expectations around convenience will only increase with time. Yes, people are going to be euphoric and go back to in-restaurant dining. It's fun to see that. I got to dine for the first time indoor this past weekend and to see the smiles on people's faces. I don't think this is a zero-sum game. I guess I'll close on this, Cara, by saying that restaurants now have a tremendous opportunity in partnership with DoorDash. They used to be beholden only to the four walls, the people that

come into their restaurant or pick up food from their restaurant. Now they can service a much larger area. A lot of these restaurants, same-store sales were decreasing prior to the pandemic, right? And now- So you're saying it. So I'm going to do DoorDash slash Uber slash blank slash Domino's because it's not just DoorDash because it's a really competitive environment. Good try on that one. Scott, last question. Yeah. As I read through, I looked at your earnings call transcripts. The thing that would get my greed glands going as a shareholder is your monthly subscription program. I've been a big fan of recurring revenue. He loves the rundle.

Well, I just want to give you, I'm going to give you an ad here because I do want you to come back on. Five million subscribers paying 10 bucks a month, that's $600 million a year in recurring revenue. I think about a third of your users are now in the subscription program. Have you thought about layering in other components into that to make it more of a bundle? It seems to me that if it's not autonomous, and I think you're in a very weird spot around autonomous. I think it would be very hard for you to be a proponent of autonomous publicly. I just think you're in almost an impossible spot there.

Unless you're like a jerk like Travis, but go ahead. But then, but around subscription, you can be, I think, to me, kind of loud and proud. Have you thought about bundling in other things into some sort of recurring revenue monthly program? Definitely. Normally, we like to test things out. We sort of crawl, walk, run. Subscription was one of those things where we began this journey three years ago. And the fact that there's 5 million now and growing, the basic model is one where you lower the fees for customers in exchange for that recurring revenue and you get increased engagement, order frequency and retention. And so, one of the things that we did, Scott, at the beginning of the pandemic was we accelerated

convenience. So, if you think back to when I was at Amazon, we did, you know, they were just a bookseller and we went into music video. I was the video guy. DoorDash is now in its moment where it's going to go beyond just restaurant delivery. Convenience was our first, and we brought that forward because we thought it would be an important service during the pandemic. But to your point, we folded that into the DashPass subscription. So you can get Walgreens and CVS and Wawa and Circle K and 7-Eleven delivered as a part of your DashPass membership. Did you say Wawa? Yeah. I'm in. Go ahead. Sorry.

No, I love Wawa. I just don't like going there. We sell a lot. And then grocery is something that we're now progressing against. Partnerships with Meijer, Hy-Vee in the Midwest, that's also included in DashPass. So the idea is that ultimately it will be your local subscription to get things in minutes, not days. All right. Who's your biggest competitor? Last question, then we got to go. You know, I'm going to answer that question with, you know, it's, you know, it's, it's our- Ourselves. Exactly. It's our ability. No, look, at the end of the day, it's a very competitive landscape.

Or is it Amazon? Uber is one of our, you know, that very much respect them. And they've done great work. Grubhub as well. But that's typically the competitive set. But, you know, we very much focus on the customer first. You know, that's propelled us to a lead. We have about 54% market share in the United States in this very

competitive landscape, but we don't think we've won anything. Yeah. We've taken a lead, but this is day one. I know. I'd say Amazon. Chris, I gotta look back where you started. I'm telling you, I ordered a thing for a sippy cup last night at 11. It was at my house at five in the morning. And then I, it was shocking. It was by Amazon. Awesome. Just saying it was, it was at my house at five in the morning. And then it was shocking. It was by Amazon. Awesome. Just saying. It was fascinating. Anyway, thank you so much.

This is a really interesting area. Thank you, Chris. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens as we go forward. I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Chris. Take care. Thank you. Thanks, Miles.

Nice meeting you. He's interesting, isn't he? He's an interesting guy. Yeah, I think he's in a tough spot, though. I think that's a place with a bunch of deep pockets going after each other with very little differentiation. We'll see. I think that's a tough one.

We'll see. Really tough one. You've got to add the rundle. You're right. They've got to be more. They've got to be your delivery guy. If you were going to compete against, if you were going to go into a market and said, what two organizations do I not want to compete against? Do you want to compete against Uber and Amazon?

Yeah. I mean, that's just tough, right? But they're still ahead. They're still ahead than them. Yeah, they're number one, right? And Instacart. There's not just that. They're still ahead than them. And Instacart. There's not just that. We didn't leave out that. There's a lot. But someone's going to be your delivery guy, and that's going to be interesting.

All right, Scott, we're going to take one more quick break, and we'll be back for wins and fails. 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. 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. Okay, Scott wins and fails.

I would say I'm going to go first. Go ahead. Scott Galloway as an Airbnb. He gets five stars. Go on. Five stars. Right? I was a little worried about someone.

How can someone this masculine be this lovely? How is it possible? I was worried about cameras and recording devices in the bedroom, and I checked for them in the bathroom, but there were none to be had. That's a little weird. I know that, but you know that Airbnb thing. Really? Is that how I remember it? Yes. But you know that Airbnb thing. Really?

Is that how they're doing it? Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. You don't read up on things. I check at every Airbnb I go to. Giant Man is here. That was seriously fucking. That kid, he looks, when you walked in together, it looked like he was dropping you off at

kindergarten. People have no idea how enormous you're something what golden child loves giant man doesn't doesn't golden child love a giant man oh that was nice that was actually the nicest part of it that was the you know golden child their mom so-so but the kids were their kids all right all right my win is is our miami relationship i think pivot con in miami we're gonna have some fun there we're gonna rock the house or else it'll be a disaster where we'll be arrested by police that's my goal that's my goal pretty much second time for you second time for you you criminal you gangster i've been arrested my fail uh i don't have a fail this

week i don't have a fail i don't feel don't have a fail. I don't feel like there's that many fails this week. Feels okay. We're getting there. A variance, I guess, but we'll see. We're doing okay, I think. Nice. Scott? My win is Biden's proposal to eliminate capital against tax deduction. I thought it made sense several decades ago. We needed more capital drawn into the marketplace. I think the incentives, I think there's no dearth of capital. And all this has become is a transfer of wealth

from the poor to the rich, where there's just no reason. Rich people are squealing, squealing. Well, all day today on CNBC. It would be hard to imagine any cohort in the history of mankind that has done better in the last 12 months

than wealthy people in the U.S. Well, you know, Biden hates innovation, according to them. He hates innovation, just so you know. Well, anyway, it's time. There's no excuse to, we don't need to draw, there's no shortage of capital, investment capital. And it just doesn't make any sense that people, that we've got to stop prioritizing money over sweat. There's nothing more noble. The American brand is about generosity, liberty, empathy, but we work. And when there's got to be a dignity in work, and then when you tax people more for the money their sweat makes than the money their money makes, it's just led to some very weird places. So I salute the

Biden administration for going after what has been, in my view, a corrupt tax and to go back to the Reagan years when all income was just income. And then my fail is I think there's a lot of moral hazard beginning to creep up. One, we talked about the out of control CEO compensation of bailouts that encourage CEOs to take their companies to the brink of zero such that they can be awarded options. And then when the company rips back to kind of just where it was two years ago, they trot off with $30, $40, $50 million. It's no surprise that like hotel CEOs, MGM, Carnival are just raking it in. And that is a terrible moral hazard that encourages reckless behavior and risk-taking. And also, and we don't want to talk about this because it's more

uncomfortable, but the moral hazard behind the stimulus and extending unemployment benefits is going to create a labor shortage where the bottom line is it's just more economically advantageous to stay at home for many workers right now than to go into work. And you're seeing huge labor shortages. And I hope that takes wages up. But when you, when, you know, I think it's a problem when in America we've decided, and we need to revisit minimum wage laws, but when we've decided that people should stay at home versus work. And I think that's what we've done with this, some of the stimulus around unemployment. Yep. Yep. So look, my win- We got that complaint a lot in Miami.

They didn't have enough employees. They can't find people. Job fairs, no one's showing up. No one's showing up because between stimulus and unemployment and the fact that you can call in and say, I may have been exposed to COVID, so I'm taking the next 15, 30 days off. That means we've got to raise, we've got to create incentives to work. And it's not, incentives to stay at home, incentives to take your company to the brink of bankruptcy are not what capitalism is all about. I like this. This is a very smart little knitting together of two different ideas. It's

very smart. There you go. There you go. Yeah, much like your wife's delicious pancakes. I'm complex with King- Her delicious pancakes that she made. Tell her I love her multigrain pancakes. They're amazing. Yeah, she loves the switchers. She loves the switchers. It was fun. I think she was glad to see us all go, including you. You saw she kicked me out, right? I saw that. I'm like, I'll stay home. She's like, no, you're going to New York. She's like, you're out of here.

Get going, Scott. Let's go out of the house. She's like, you're out of here. You're going with them. Oh, God. She's glad to see us all. She runs. I love seeing you being run the show of by another person.

It was good. Because I try and I fail. Did you see when I was negotiating with my kids? I'm like trying to get them to go to bed. And they're like, no. And I said, come on. I'm going to get in trouble with mom. And they're like, we feel you.

We get it. We get it. Anyway, she's fantastic. That's my go-to. I'm scared of mom, please. It's so nice. I got away some lessons from her. She's giving me lessons on how to control you.

Anyway, Scott, that's the show. It's a sad situation for you now that we are united together, your wife and I. That's what I mean. All right, we'll be back on Friday for more. Who's your Kelly McGillis? Who's your Kelly McGillis? Oh, God.

Go to Nis? We literally have bounced a foot into the air when Giant Boy sat down. I almost hit my head on the ceiling. I'm bringing my other son next time. I have other children. There's so many Swisher children. What is he, Manute Bull? I mean, these are

freaks. He's a strong one. They're lovely children. Give me those two kids. I'm taking over Australia. I am taking over Australia. All right. I am taking over Australia with those two. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for the Pivot podcast. The link is also in our show notes. You can have more giant kids anytime.

Don't let the lesbians beat you out, but we do. Let me just say, read us out, Scott. My sperm can do no good. Anyways, today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Today's episode was engineered by Ernieanis. Today's episode was engineered by Ernie Intertide. Special thanks to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you're subscribed on Apple Podcasts, 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. We'll be back later

this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Florida and the Swishers. That's right. How can anyone be this masculine and this lovely? Can I give you one piece of feedback? There were no mints. Okay. No mints on the pillows. Oh, there we go. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things. And it's never too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system,

you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Support for the show comes from Alex Partners. Did you know that almost Thank you. report, you can learn the best path to turning that disruption into growth for your business. With a focus on clarity, direction, and effective implementation, Alex Partners provides essential support when decisive leadership is crucial. You can discover insights like these by reading Alex Partners' latest technology industry insights, available at www.alexpartners.com slash Vox. That's www.alexpartners.com slash V-O-X. In the face of disruption, businesses trust Alex Partners to get straight to the point and deliver results when it really matters.