Pivot - Chris Hughes' Case Against Facebook, Strikes on IPO Week, GoT vs Avengers

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

"Union Scott" shows up to discuss the work stoppages at Uber and Lyft. Kara asks whether tech money for candidates is tainted. And the hosts analyze Game of Thrones (Facebook edition). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And this is Scott Galloway. Kara, where are you today? I'm in New York. You were supposed to be here.

There was a screw-up on the schedule. I'm sorry. And who, okay, but who's screw-up, Kara? Usually you. Usually every week you. Okay. Every week you. But in this case,

but I'm here in the studio. I was on time. I took a red-eye in from Las Vegas where I was at the Anthony Scaramucci Salt Conference. How was that? Before that, yeah. It was good. I saw John Kelly from afar.

He was in the green room with me, in a giant green room. You know, I interviewed Mark Cuban and Steve Case, and I interviewed Scooter Braun, which was really interesting. He's the manager for a lot of big musical acts like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande and a bunch of others.

It was interesting. It was interesting for me because I got to talk to those people. And what was the mood? You know, rich people get richer. That's really pretty much the mood I could tell. Like, you know, it just was, Jeff Sessions was there, Chris Christie was there saying that

opinions are not lies. That was the thing. Opinions that Trump has aren't lies. And I was like, well, are lies opinions? No, lies are lies. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. It's strange, though. They're all incredibly compromised in a way that's really disgusting. Under the banner of it couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys,

the hedge fund industry has actually been pretty much wrecked the last three or four years because you have all of the returns have been aggregated to six or seven stocks, which we talk about ad nauseum. And nobody's going to pay these guys 2% and 20% or 2% management fees and 20% of the upside to buy Netflix. So as a result, their selection set of investments has been this cluster of companies that have underperformed. So as a result, all of these hedge funds have underperformed the last three to five years. The best way to describe the hedge fund industry is expensive but bad. And you've seen this massive shift of capital out of active investing to passive. And a lot of the biggest names in the business are literally a shadow of themselves just managing their own money now. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, it's

interesting. There's a lot of discussion of where investment should go, you know, and where it's going to go. And I think everyone was sort of spooked by the tariff wars, and they don't know where it's going with the White House. They also are in love with the economy. So it was an interesting time to be among all those very wealthy people. Well, welcome back. Off the red eye. I'm here in New York. More importantly, I have something we have to talk about.

What? I saw Endgame at your suggestion. Okay. I took my eight and my 11-year-old boys, and just to give you a sense of what I thought of the movie, 45 minutes in, I asked them if they were okay. They said yes, and I walked out planning to hit the bar. I go to I-Pick where there's a bar.

I was so bored, and halfway to the bar, halfway to the bar, I realized, wait, going to the bar in the middle of a movie where your kids are in the theater is like one step behind putting them on the roof of the car and then driving away in a Walmart. That's literally like child services. How old are they?

Eight and 11. Yeah, that is a little young. Yeah, so anyways, I came back. I didn't hit the bar, just to be clear. I came back, but I wanted to ask you. Ten is probably the cutoff. I just don't get this. I'll tell you.

Why? What don't you get. I'll tell you. Why? What don't you get? They're miraculous people who are giving up their lives for our planet. Okay, because you know what, Kara? I'm very sensitive now. After my book on love, you know what I do sometimes, Kara? I sometimes just go up to a window and I whisper. I whisper at the window.

I say things like, I wish we could spend more time together. And I don't even know who I'm speaking to. But I whisper at windows now. Anyways, I want you to tell me what is the genius of this whole Avengers genre. And then I'm going to tell you what I think the genius of Game of Thrones is. Because they are different types of genii or whatever. I don't get it. Well, it's like the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. You know, there's just a difference.

There's more hopefulness in Star Trek. There's less of, like, Star Wars is such a friggin' bummer all the time. They're always losing. Like, same thing with Game of Thrones is a bummer. And you think Avengers is happy?

There's never a good day. Like, this last episode, I'm not gonna go into it, but once again, they win, and then they lose. So,

like, it's just, ugh. I just like these guys. So you say, okay, so Avengers more hopeful. What else?

Is it the storytelling? Is it the special effects? Is it the character development? It's the characters. It's the special effects? Is it the character development? It's the repartee among them. It is funny. I'll give you that. It has humor. It has much better humor than Game of Thrones.

It's humor. Thor, the whole Thor angle was really great. I love him. What angle other than hot? What's the Thor? Hot and fat, but he was fat this time. Yeah, that was funny. And then, of course, any time Captain Marvel shows up with a lesbian haircut, I'm all in.

That's what it's called? That's what I And then, of course, anytime Captain Marvel shows up with a lesbian haircut, I'm all in for it. That's what it's called? That's what I should ask for? That's next time I'm a fellow barber and I pay $60 for someone with tattoos to shave my head for seven minutes, I go, I'm going lesbo. You don't have hair. Give me the lesbo. You can't have a lesbian haircut. You don't have hair. It's not easy to have a shaved head, Kara.

It's not easy. Whatever. Okay. But is there hair there underneath that shaved head? Kara, it takes real effort to be mediocre looking. I'm just saying, do you have actual hair? It's not easy. Whatever. Okay. But is there hair there underneath that shave head? Kara, it takes real effort to be mediocre looking. I'm just saying, do you have actual hair? Are you one of those people who cuts all his hair off, or is it just you're bald? Okay, so back to my favorite topic, me.

A little bit of insight into Scott. So my best feature, granted it's a low bar, my best feature used to be my hair. In grad school, Kara, I had a ponytail. Used to be. And then I was— Used to be's don't count grad school, Cara, I had a ponytail. Used to be. And then I was— Used to be's don't count anymore. I was studying for my finance final. I thought, I don't remember underlining all this text.

And I realized, oh, my God, it's my hair. And I was losing my hair, so I just shaved it all off because I found out I could raise money at 20 to 30 percent higher valuations with a shaved head. Oh, God. But I do have hair. Let's get into actual things besides your sartorials. Oh, wait. So, wait. My turn.

You know why Game of Thrones works? Okay. Why? The genius of Game of Thrones is that typically storytelling is one – well, first off, I noticed last week most storytelling is about a white guy who's redeemed. And Jamie Lannister goes back to – Of course. Everything's about a white guy who's redeemed.

Jamie Lannister goes back to Cersei. It's like, oh, my God, Jamie, why are you leaving? I thought he – I literally had hosted – He thought he was going to sleep with Brienne of Tarth or whatever. Well, I don't back to Cersei. It's like, oh, my God, Jamie, why are you leaving? I thought he—I literally had hosted— He thought he was going to sleep with Brienne of Tarth or whatever. Well, I don't want to spoil that, but that is, like, very awkward and hot at the same time, which kind of describes every time I've had sex. He's going to be killing her, right? Oh, no.

There's got to be some horrible death. Don't even say that. Don't even say that. But anyways— I'm just saying. I don't know this for a fact, but that would be my guess. Where they have changed the game, literally, is that typically storytelling in modern cinema is a white male protagonist becomes our hero

and always escapes death. And they build up these characters, and you fall in love with the Prince of Dorne, who is not only hot and kicking ass. Prince of Dorne, you're so obsessed. Oh, my God, that guy's a movie star. Okay, let's move along. We're moving along from Game of Thrones.

Well, hold on. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Don't shame me. This is important. You've had enough time to make your point. Just give me 10 seconds. My point is they build up these incredible male protagonists,

and you buy into them, and you think, oh, my God, we're going to have eight or nine seasons of this guy's spinoff cereal boxes. And then you know what they do? They kill him. They kill him and bring in another white guy protagonist like Jon Snow. But we've never seen that before. Moving along. Moving along.

Let's just go to – Lots of things. I think the big story today is Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, who had left the company, let's be clear, a long time ago, doing a big rollout. Like he was on NPR. He was on Today Show. He did a video for The Times. He had a Times editorial op-ed about how Facebook should be broken up. And was on Today Show. He did a video for The Times. He had a Times editor op-ed about how Facebook

should be broken up. And it was pretty devastating. He really went there. He went for it, let's just say. He summarized it all. Well, he essentially said what a lot of stuff I've been going on about. I think he stole everything from me. Just you? Just you, Kara? No, from everybody. You too. Who else? Oh, thanks for that. But this idea of

the company. This idea of breakup of the company. This idea of breakup of the company. And I think one of the, you know, there were so many lines in it that were just like devastating. There was one that said, Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American. It's time to break up Facebook. Whoa. Un-American? Like, you and I have not gone to un-American. But he really was laying out sort of why it's dangerous and why someone like Mark, who's very nice, which he notes in the piece, should not be having this much power.

He's unfireable. You know, the same kind of stuff we've been discussing. So what did you think of this? What do you think of this? Well, he didn't say anything new. But it is a founder. Yeah. It's a founder.

But this is, I find that the interesting point. Look, anyone who promotes the obvious here, like power corrupts, this company is out of control. We've lost the script. It's killing small business. There hasn't been a single social network of any prominence founded since 2011. 2011, yep. founded since 2011. So the fastest growing parts of our economy, whether it's search, whether it's mobile devices, whether it's e-commerce, are all dominated by one or two firms. You just know that's not good for the economy. The engine of growth has always been

small business. 15% of businesses used to be less than a year old. Now it's 8%. The number of new businesses being formed every year has been cut in half since the Carter administration. The number of new businesses being formed every year has been cut in half since the Carter administration. Non-competes, non-solicits, all they do is just entrench the incumbents in, again, another transfer of wealth from young people to baby boomers. Anyways, I agree with all of it. I think the thing that's sort of interesting here and what I wanted to ask you is guys like Roger McNamee and now Chris Hughes, who made billions off these companies and are kind of the early winners winners sort of coming out as being against these firms. And they get a lot of virtue points and respect. And my question is, you know, that's what everybody hates about limousine liberals is we believe in sort of what they think we believe in sort of. All right. I'm all for low taxes and market free economics until I get rich.

And then I find my woke. And my question is, why do we really care what these guys think? Why is it important what they think? Because he was early and really lucky? Or is he just angry he sold his shares in 2012? Well, he sold them in 2012. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, that was a lot of people online were saying that. Like, how dare he do this?

And I think Roger has had that dog him for a while. Although I have to say, he keeps going. Like, he doesn't— And he's thoughtful. And he's doubled and tripled. And he's evolved his thought. That's what's interesting about Roger. I think it's interesting.

I mean obviously this rollout was very calculated in a very interesting way. So I'm not clear what the – I think he's running for office. I know Chris pretty well. No, he's not. His husband was. His husband ran and lost. He tried to – think about it.

This guy bought – what did he buy? He bought the Atlantic and it was a huge failure what do you know a 29 year old wasn't respected by the newsroom oh new republic excuse me yeah and he basically got run out of town right well yeah yeah essentially he just didn't he decided he wanted to spend as much money as he thought maybe he wasn't as rich i don't know it's just the media is hard let's just say um amen sister yeah so it was just it was Nonetheless, it's getting a huge amount of attention, especially among the media. It's like, whoa, one of the founders. You know, if people like Kevin Systrom come out and say something,

or the WhatsApp founders who have said little things, or they're, you know, Kevin has not, but certainly it's very clear he's unhappy. As someone who's sold a bunch of companies to big companies, this is— Yeah, you have to hush and move along. People always talk about the front end and that is how bad it is that if you can't kill it, you buy it. And the fact that in every industry,

there's been a greater concentration of market share to the top two or three players, but what they don't focus enough on is the back end. And while I've signed confidentiality agreements and I literally can't speak to anything specific, let me speak in generalities. Imagine you're an entrepreneur that has a budding company that's going well and it isn't yet a threat to an incumbent, And I literally can't speak to anything specific. Let me speak in generalities. Imagine you're an entrepreneur that has a budding company that's going well and isn't yet a threat to an incumbent but may be nipping at their heels.

And they acquire you for a lot of money. And the VCs and the founders do really well. But in exchange for doing really well, you have to sign a non-compete. Once you leave, you cannot compete with this company for several years. You not only cannot compete, you cannot solicit any of the previous employees. So what does that do to wages? What does that do to wages if all of a sudden there's fewer people who can hire people at that company? So what you have is a few people make a lot of money. They're willing to pay more for the company. That's the good news. The bad news is it really cauterizes new business formation and also hamstrings wage growth.

So everything we're doing, everything we're allowing is really one thing, and that is how do we make the 50-year-old baby boomer wealthier? And it's really sort of a conspiracy between, I think, the people who already have land and young entrepreneurs that break through. This is your thing. This is your jam is the money being transferred to old people. Well, everyone's adopted my break them up jam.

That's no longer that interesting. Okay, so you're having a new one. I got a new one. Well, I think the idea that he has so much unchecked power and I think that, you know, we've talked about that and Chris talked about that.

And he goes, Mark is still the same person I watched hug his parents as they left our dorms common room at the beginning of his sophomore year, of our sophomore year. He's the same person who procrastinated studying for tests, fell in love with his future wife while in line in the bathroom at a party or slept on a mattress on a floor in a small apartment years after he could afford it much more. In other words, he's human.

That was his attempted. So how close he was and also how human. But it's also his very humanity that makes his unchecked power so problematic. Yeah. Well, look, power so problematic. Yeah. Well, look, power corrupts. No individual. A key component of our society is checks and balances because we recognize. Yeah.

Go ahead. No, I'm just saying. He also throws them under the bus for obsessed with gross and domination. Mark used the word domination to describe our early ambitions with no hint of irony or humility. Yeah. No, it was. Little shibs everywhere. There wasn't anything new, but it was a summary of everything. I don't think it really, look, at the end of the day.

It was a lot of shibs. It all comes down to one thing. The DOJ and the FTC have to do it. The Marines, the Park Services, and the Coast Guard every day, do every day. They have to do their damn job. Enough of the old investors and the billionaires coming forward and discovering their principles after they cash out. You know, Lena Kahn, Congress, Elizabeth Warren, somebody has to write legislation and propose action,

and it probably needs to be the DOJ under William Barr. Yeah, that'll happen. But we need government intervention here. We have literally lost the script. It's a pretty easy one. Make them spin WhatsApp. Make them spin Instagram. The greatest regulatory failures of the last 10 years. I mean, there used to be the number of FTC actions has literally gone down just dramatically over the last 30 years. There's really no big is beautiful in the eyes of the government. Big is beautiful, but maybe not so much. We'll see where it goes, but it's very, it's going to cause a lot of,

like, this is going to be like, whoa, for days. Facebook cannot catch a frigging break, can they? Geez Louise. They've been catching, they've been catching the mother of all breaks every day. This is a company that should be broken up. Speaking of which, I want to talk a little bit about the Uber strike. Uber lifts. Yes, exactly. So I think a key component to building a big unicorn, which will ultimately have to create monopoly power, oftentimes destroy jobs, oftentimes engage in predatory behavior or monopolistic job destroying behavior, not competitive behavior, is I think they all, a key component for all of these companies, a key asset, if I were on the board, is who is our heat shield? And that is, who is so likable and so inspiring that they hold the wolves at the door longer than they should? So, Bombergate's not likable. I think that's why the DOJ moved in on them in 99 instead of like 2003 or four after they probably would have built their own search engine. And the ultimate, I think the ultimate heat shield of the last 50 years was Colin Powell,

who took a year of distinguished service, honor, integrity, and basically got in front of the UN and lied and waved a vial around and convinced a bunch of Western democracies to make the greatest geopolitical catastrophic decision in history that killed 8,000 Americans, permanently injured 30,000, a half a million Iraqis, and basically a false war. All right, come on. Okay, so next heat shield,

number two, Sheryl Sandberg. All right. Inspiring. Back with Sheryl Sandberg. We're talking about Uber Lyft. Well, hold on, hold on. Okay, so I'll bring it back.

I'll bring it back. She's underpaid a billion dollars for basically staving off the wolves while the platform's weaponized, right? Because everybody leaned in. The new heat shield, Dara. Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber. Because he is very, very likable.

He is articulate. He's nice. I think he has a lot of integrity. I also think he looks like one of the clip art images. He's ethnically ambiguous and handsome. It's like he's handsome, but I don't know where he's from. You had me until you started on his looks. Listen to me.

The work stop, you think that they're getting away with the drivers. You've been talking about this before. And these work stoppages, do you think they're going to matter, this idea that the drivers should get more? Or are these businesses just not going to be good until they get them down, those wages down? In 1980, there were 400 work stoppages in America. Last year, there were 30. The year before that, there were seven. Work stoppages have basically become

the kind of a privilege only the rich, like at Google, who can walk out and say, oh, we're angry about this, but now we're going to go back to making $300,000 a year. Because in 1981, Reagan said, okay, air traffic controllers, you want to stop your work? Fine, I'm firing your ass. And there's basically unions have been wrecked. It used to be 20% of American workers 30 years ago were union. Now it's 10%. By the way,

in Ireland, 90%. In Germany, it's really high. And all German company boards have to have union representatives or workers basically occupy like half the seat. So in sum, capital's been kicking the shit out of labor for the last 30 years in the U.S. Yeah. So what happens? What do we do? What goes on? What occurs? Well, when was the last time? This is what is so unusual about the work stoppages at Uber and Lyft. When was the last? I don't think I've ever heard of workers going on strike the week of the IPO. This is like spouses not talking to each other or their parents the day before their wedding. And maybe that happens, but it's a bad

sign. So this is supposed to be happy, happy. I mean, you would think. Right, but they're not getting, they're getting, there's problems of giving them shares. There is. I was with, when Mark, I asked Mark Cuban about this, Scooter Braun happens to be an investor, and he said, you know, they should give the drivers stock, figure out a way, even though it's really complex. I have talked to Dara about this and the Lyft people about it. But,

and what the issue is, is some of them work sometime, some of them work part-time. It's super hard because they're not employees, right? And Mark was like, everybody who works for him gets stock. He was like, there's got to be a way to do it. And he thought it was really that if you didn't equalize pay equity around things and every person in your company doesn't get stock, then you're setting yourself for bigger fail later. And I think Mark is correct about that.

Yeah, and it would be impossible to screen all our content. We've been co-opted into believing that for some reason it's difficult. They can't do it. It's difficult to give some money after we're about to register $90 billion in value. But we can't figure out a way to give more than a dime per ride to our drivers. What do we do? Poor fucking us. Yeah, they can figure it out.

I've figured out a way. That's what Mark said. And they keep saying they always go back to, oh, but these workers have flexibility. I have workers that have flexibility, and I figured out a fucking way to pay them a decent wage. I mean, this is such bullshit. Oh, we can't figure it out.

I love Union Scott. I can show you. Look for the union label. You know, I'm part of a union. When you are buying a coach or a soapbox. Anyways. Remember that? Yeah, I do remember that.

It was a great commercial. But the notion they just can't figure it out, but they can figure out a way to have you in the backseat of a car and have it get you from here to Montauk without a driver. Oh, but they can't figure out a way to give their driver stock. Give me a break. All right. Okay. We're going to do one last thing, and then we're going to get to break and then wins and fails. Pete Buttigieg.

Wow. He's become the new toast of Silicon Valley. I just got another invite for him in Oakland. He's been all over Silicon Valley hoovering up the dough. And why? What is it they like about him? Well, our lovely reporter, Teddy Schliever on Recode, has been writing a lot about where the tech money is going. Reid Hoffman just did a thing for Cory Booker.

But they like Pete Buttigieg, I guess. They didn't much like Hillary Clinton. They did like Obama. And now Pete Buttigieg seems to be someone they're interested in. Although there were a lot of Bernie bros in Silicon Valley and stuff like that. So it's interesting that he's going out there and taking that money when tech is under such siege. That's what's kind of interesting about it to me. And what do you think Pete's – what do you think Mayor Pete's chances are?

I don't know. I don't know. I know you love him. But I think he's got to keep the momentum going obviously. He might have peaked too early or I don't know. It's a little early to be the leading person. And then Beto just hired someone, a very significant person from the Obama campaign who did delegate count. So I think it's going to be a long haul here, who's going to make it.

But he's definitely hoovering up the dough out there. And the question is, is it good dough to hoover up? What do you think of Pete or others, Cory Booker, others going and getting tech money? Is that a bad thing or a good thing? Because, you know, Elizabeth Warren returned the opiate money. Like, is there money you can't take now? I don't think tech money is that tainted. I don't see it.

I think Pete needs the money and, you know, hate the game, not the player. If you want to be elected, you can, until Donald Trump, the person that raised the money always won president. So, you know, there's a direct correlation between money and your ability to win. So you just can't blame them. I think it's nice. Bernie Sanders kind of changed the game because he got so much money in small money donation and created this upward spiral that people felt powerful to say, I have a candidate that's not taking big money, he's taking small money. And the internet has enabled small kind of micropayments and donations. So I think a lot of them have gone woke because

they can and they can refuse PAC money. It's just it's pure math, though. I don't think Elizabeth Warren or Senator Warren was going to get a ton of PAC money. But, you know, Jeb Bush is basically Jeb Bush basically and Hillary Clinton basically blew up the notion that money gets you an election. They were the first ones to raise the most money that didn't win. So I don't know. But I don't I don't resent him. I don't have a problem with him taking tech money. What do you think there's an issue? No, I don't. I don't think there's an issue at all. Yeah, I don't think there's an issue at all. It's going to be and you know, who's what's

incredible is Biden has actually extended his lead. And by the way, that was a prediction. I thought he was going to crash in the polls and I got that wrong. I did not. He's stronger. Yeah, he's doing really well. And you know who he's hurting is Bernie. My mom likes Joe Biden. That's how I judge these things. She will vote for us. He will vote for Joe Biden over Trump 100 percent. If you're looking for those votes, if you're looking for those edge votes, you know what I mean?

She's a typical Republican voter. But if you want to move the ones who voted for Obama back to that camp, he's the one. I'm sorry. Got it. Disappoint I'm sorry. Got it. Disappointing, but true. Got it. All right, so. A win.

So go ahead, finish up, because then we're going to take an ad break. What? Oh, we don't want to talk about a win? A win? No, not yet. After the ad break. All right, when we get back,

we're going to talk about a win, because Scott so much wants to jump the gun here. I'm ready. 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. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

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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. Okay, Scott, we're back now with wins and fails. Go ahead and do your win. So my win is your woman, Senator Kamala Harris. Did you see her questioning of Attorney General Barr? I was going to say you're—you know what? Honestly, I was going to say you're a girl rather than your boy. And then I thought, okay, I can't say you're a girl. That's a hate crime.

I trigger you. Okay, so you're— It's just rude. It's what it is. Anyways, okay. Senator, you're senator. If I said you're— What's the opposite of woke?

If you said you're— Completely asleep? If I said your boy peed, is that disparaging? I don't like any of it. But go ahead. He's an adult. Although he is somewhat of a man boy. A winner. Kamala Harris questioning

William Barr. I thought she was outstanding. Yeah, she's a prosecutor. Just for fun, stop the YouTube video of him at any moment while she is questioning him. And he looks like a 17-year-old that's just been caught masturbating by his parents. He looks so incredibly embarrassed and without explanation. He looks just entirely like, I don't know what to do, how to answer.

I just know I'm wrong. He looks ridiculous. I thought she was, I would be, she is literally the last person you would want to see in a courtroom when you're on the stand. So what does it make any difference though? Like, look, he just, he, they, all the contempt charges, everything else doesn't matter. They're just, they're just stonewalling like crazy and seem to be doing rather well by doing it. But that's, that's another loser. And that is our institutions and our referees. And it starts at the top. We're now violating court orders. We're now violating, ignoring subpoenas. We're now basically saying, fine, put me in contempt of Congress. And it's

trickling down to a lot of dangerous places. In the NBA, people are yelling at refs, calling them, one ref called a female, excuse me, one player called a female ref a fucking bitch, another threw his mouth guard at a referee. And what's most dangerous about it is not this irresponsible, reckless behavior, but the fact that it's being exhibited by the stars. And it's becoming associated with the best players. So if you're a real man, if you're really excellent at what you do. This is what Tristan told me.

Well, this is not that. But also it permeates. Tristan talked about it. It permeates. Even if you're not, you don't read Facebook, it permeates your culture. Well, Elon Musk, it's happening everywhere. A sign of your mojo and your leadership and how badass you are is to stick up the middle finger to our institutions. And it's just not healthy.

We're literally tearing this stuff apart at the seams. So a big loser right now is our institutions and our referees. All right. Well, yeah, but what can they do? If someone says no, it's like having an incredibly bratty child who you really don't have control of. Well, it's our fault. So in the case of us, it's the electorate that doesn't elect people that have a backbone. It's like start demanding, start voting for people who say, I'm going to break these guys up. Stop going to Golden State Warriors games. Stop buying season tickets or get rid of that corporate box. And you say, until the NBA actually starts imposing real fines with this sort of disrespectful behavior, I'm not interested in supporting the team. Money

talks and votes talk. We do live in a democracy because the scary thing is we've decided we like this shit. Well, do you think it's because, I mean, I do agree with Tristan. I'm going to say his name like that again. Tristan said, I think it's true. It does, it does, it does seep down into the culture at large. And so he said, even though you can say you're not an online person, that what's going on online seeps everywhere, you know, whether it everywhere, whether it be the anti-vax thing. If you live in a neighborhood, there's actual physical dangers there, but also the conceptual idea that you can say and do anything. Like all bets are off. Yeah, it's not –

It's the purge, Scott. It's an issue. The purge. Do you have any winners and losers this week? I do. The New York Times reporting on Trump's finances I really enjoyed. Yeah, it was fantastic. Look, it was great.

It was great. It was – again, like their tax thing. They're doing amazing reporting on this. Not that it matters. Again, does it matter? Does anyone care? And then they spin it into isn't he a success? And, of course, he was trying to say that.

He essentially admitted to tax fraud and how successful he was at doing tax fraud. into tax fraud and how successful he was at doing tax fraud. Yeah, but now we know he wasn't afraid to – or he's not afraid or reticent to release his taxes, I don't think, because it necessarily indicates a crime, which it might. But more than anything, the bottom line is he's a really bad businessman. Yeah. He inherited, I think, approximately a half a billion dollars and managed to turn it into less. Fred sounds like a good businessman.

Yeah, Fred sounds like a smart, disciplined businessman. And his son is just a kind of, you know, the second generation always loses it. Sloppy, sloppy. All right, the other fail. What is your fail this week? I had my fail, the refs and institutions. Okay, predictions. We got to get out of here.

Predictions, predictions. Okay, you were wrong about Biden. So let's just make that clear. Wrong about Biden. But let's revisit our Lyft prediction. How's that okay how's that working out not good not good but I think Uber's this week we nailed the prediction on Lyft so Uber let's talk a little bit about Uber Uber's coming out prediction they keep prediction for them they keep coming they keep lowering the price range it's now down to 90 building I think I'm not sure and it's much more fun to talk about

dramatic predictions but I've decided my prediction around Uber in terms of the stock is going to be meh. I think this thing is being perfectly manic've been able to convince the market, is their ability to, like Amazon, use their money-losing flywheel, e-commerce, in this case ride-hailing, to spin out other profitable businesses. And they've shown an ability to do that, unlike Lyft with Uber Eats. Now, can they do anything? You know, Lyft had a good quarter in terms of growth. It was a very impressive growth quarter.

Well, Cara, tell me to go build a $2 billion business I can lose a billion dollars on. I'll show you growth. I mean, that's just not that hard. Is that a billion for them? No, it's not quite a billion. Oh, it's close to a billion. You're right. Give me a credit card with a billion-dollar credit limit.

I'll create the illusion of prosperity. I'm going to get on that next week. I'm going to get you down. Get me one of those. It's not a Discover card. Don't give me a Discover card. It's got to be an Amex card. I'll ask my friend Bill Maher, which you were not on. No, I'm kidding. next week. I'm going to get you that. Get me one of those. It's not a Discover card. Don't give me a Discover card. It's got to be an Amex card. I'll ask my friend Bill Maher, which you were not on.

Oh, my God. Moby looks like you. Moby looks like you. Let me just say. That's not a nice thing to say. Everyone thought it was you on there rubbing the Trump against his penis. Everyone thought that was you. By the way, what happened to that guy?

One of the best albums ever played. I mean, literally one of the best albums ever. And just like Michael Jackson, he can't do anything now. When's the last thing he's done? He had issues around personal problems. He had a lot of drinking and drugs and stuff like that. Oh, no, I feel bad. Anyways, Moby's a genius.

By the way, and I don't know how you're going to respond to this. You know what I thought when I saw you, Cara? You look nice. What are you doing? Whatever you did there, you should do that every day. I'm like, wow, Kara is attractive. Is that a hate crime? Do you feel triggered right now?

What is it? You don't see me in person? I'm very attractive in person. I mean, I'm like, Kara looks nice. Oh, it's me. And then I switched it off and went back to me, and I'm like, I can't believe they didn't invite me on that program. I'm going to try. But my first thought was that you look nice.

And I thought you were good. I thought the show was actually passable. It was hysterical. What's he like? Give me some behind the... Is there like... Does he take you to his home in the Hollywood Hills and like crush up Cialis or something?

There's a party. Tell me about the party. Tell me about the party. It was just a party in one of the rooms there. It was very nice. And then I went out to dinner with Kathy Griffin and a bunch of friends of mine. Oh, talk about a down shift.

Talk about a down grade. No, she was great. And then in the morning, I had breakfast in Ashton Kutcher, who I know pretty well was sitting next to me. It was a very Hollywood weekend. It was a very Hollywood time. You had breakfast with Ashton Kutcher? No, he was sitting next to me with his kids. That's all.

He just happened to sit down. It was weird. I happened to know him because he was so – he's an investor in Uber. I've known him for a long time because he's invested in a lot of tech companies. So it was very funny to have him and his lovely wife, Mila Kunis, sit down with his beautiful children. Yeah. What a shocker they have beautiful kids. Yeah.

Yeah. But it was nice. It was at a deli there. It's just – I like Hollywood because of that. You run into people. So speaking of beautiful children, my idea – and tell me what you think of this. Okay. Because then we got to get out. I think AOC and Beto should marry. children, my idea, and tell me what you think of this. Okay. Because then we've got to get out.

I think AOC and Beto should marry, have millions. Hold on. See, I knew this. No. Hold on. Have millions of kids. Predictions. God is going to be sued.

I then take those kids. I weaponize them with AI. We take over Australia. I become general concert of Australia, and I'll make you the first lesbian mayor of Perth. Boom! That's how we roll. Perth is like California in the 50s. It's dreamy.

No, it really isn't. Melbourne is beautiful. There was a lovely story in the New York Times of 36 hours. I love Melbourne. Melbourne's very nice. The San Francisco of the Southern Hemisphere. Whatever, it's pretty. My nephew lives there.

Scott. Cara. Thank you so much. All right, prediction for the price for Uber. Since that was your prediction, what is the prediction for the price for Uber since that was your prediction. What is the prediction for the price of Uber? So there's been too hot. There's been too cold.

This will be the Goldilocks IPO. It'll do what it's supposed to do. It'll get a decent but not a crazy pop, nothing like Beyond Meat, and it'll actually hold. I think the bankers are going to do their job here. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see. We'll talk about that next week. We'll know these things

and we'll see the fallout from the Chris Hughes scene. We'll see what next billionaire turns on Mark Zuckerberg in the ongoing Game of Thrones in that company. Did you see, by the way, did you see the pictures

of those two, Chris Hughes and Mark Zuckerberg? I'm convinced working at Facebook is like being president. I think it ages you unnaturally. Those guys look like my grandfather. And just five years ago, they both looked like my paper boy. They're in a time warp.

They are aging at five times. I'm weeping big, heavy tears for them. I don't feel sorry for anybody in that game. They look like shit. Seriously, guys. Go to a spa. Sorry, Scott. Well, you and your amazing head of hair is so beautiful.

Anyway, Nishat Kerouac is the show's executive producer. Scott, I'll see you next week. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you like this week's episode, leave us a review. 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.

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