Pivot - Elon Musk on Saturday Night Live and the dogecoin tumble

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

Kara and Scott recap Elon Musk's host appearance on Saturday Night Live and how it affected the cryptocurrency market. They also discuss a major cyberattack on a US natural gas pipeline. Then we are joined by author of the new book Amazon Unbound, Brad Stone, to discuss how Amazon is changing in the post-Bezos era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's time. You hold on to me, because we're going to get to that. It's time. But Kara was right. But anyway, we're going to get to it. But were you right about it? I mean, you're always right. He wouldn't be terrible. You said he'd be terrible. What a victory for you. He wouldn't be terrible. He was actually good. He wouldn't be terrible.

He was actually good. He was actually good. Hold on, hold on. Let's just put a pin in that. I promised myself I wasn't going to talk about this. Put a pin in it. Put a pin in it. Do you really think, okay, not he. Do you think that was a good show?

Yeah, I do. For them, I watch it all the time. So yes, yes. You thought that was a better than average SNL show. Let's get to it in the big story. We're not going to talk about this yet. We're not going to do other things. Sorry.

So just a couple things that are going on. Obviously, the first one, the Pentagon is considering pulling a plug on the Jedi Cloud computing project. It's been fought over by Amazon and Microsoft for years. Donald Trump seemed to have put himself in the middle of it, pulled it away from Amazon. Went to Microsoft, both very qualified companies, but Donald Trump sort of tarnished it. And now the Pentagon's like, oh, I don't want to pick. It's been too tainted. So what do you think? Nothing is more oppressive than a weak and feeble government. We're unwinding four years of incompetence. And it's a shame because you pointed out this is important work. Yep, it's important work. So it's just delayed our ability to respond to

threats. And they're going to end up probably having to redo the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. I think they were like, hands off. We don't want to defend Microsoft because Trump sort of weighed in there. It's all dirty and we have to redo it. It's a redo. It's a redo. Same thing with this major gas pipeline in the Northeast was hacked by ransomware over the weekend. This is a common thing that's happened to hospitals and other things. The latest attack was prompted, prompted the Biden administration to hold an emergency meeting on whether to strengthen executive orders, protecting federal agencies, go far enough. This is another mess. Solar winds came during the Trump administration, which was a huge hacking of the federal government and others

via this other software. It was sort of a, it's hard. We had Nicole on to talk about it. But again, this, she talked about ransomware and these problems. And here it is again. So another cleanup situation, cleanup in aisle two, I guess. Yeah, this is, I mean, I know it's several small businesses that have been, I don't know what the term is, their systems get locked and then they get an email saying, I need $80,000 in Bitcoin. And the scary part is a lot of them I know end up paying it. And it's weird. This will have a lot of impact. These are proxy wars, right? So A, there's great money involved, but B, if you're China or Russia and trying to weaken your perceived enemies at a very cost-effective level, cyberterrorism is the most effective weapon ever developed or cyberwarfare.

And also, it doesn't lead to nuclear war. I don't care how big the cyberattack is, it's unlikely to escalate to actual bombs or missiles. And so it's very frightening. Fortunately, I think we have a lot of smart people on it. The other thing is I think it ends up being the Achilles heel for crypto because the currency of exchange around ransomware and even money laundering is turning out to be crypto. And I wonder, and this might be the red herring or the excuse the government uses to step in and regulate this,

but this is all, the currency for this type of crime is usually the decentralized nature or advantages of crypto. Yeah. What are your thoughts? Well, I think it's just, look, I think there's a, look, I think that there's a lot of problems here

with all these vulnerabilities that we have. And I think it wasn't maintained and Trump fired all the people that were involved in it, the good people. And so we're picking up, you know,

right as we're having all, the U.S. was responsible for a lot of these people to be able to have these tools and things like that. We have a very porous country in lots of ways. We're very able to be attacked. We were very good at attacking. And so I think this is going to be one of the big issues of the day is how, as we become more

interconnected, how we prevent this kind of stuff. This is a major gas pipeline. There was a water system. Some are ransomware, some are for hacking, some are for intelligence, some are for just money. This group says it's only for money and it only does, it seems it had like a list of like ways they do this. It's still a crime basically. And so, you know, they're going to have to put systems in place to protect our national infrastructure and to prevent these ransomware attacks from going on. It's really a difficult thing. But yeah, you're right. Everything has become more digitized. It becomes more vulnerable, more and more vulnerable.

And, you know, I just assume everything is vulnerable at this point. And, you know, here's look at the Pentagon having to dump this contract. Same thing. It's really critical that our federal government should have the very best and most hacker proof or attack proof, including in states and local governments and everything else but there's just too much surface as they say there's too much surface there's too much surface here and speaking of surface there was a wall street journal article um uh surface of attack is what i'm saying reporting that melinda gates first talked to a

divorce attorney uh in 2019 which was around when Bill Gates' connections to Jeffrey Epstein were made public. I didn't understand the Jeffrey Epstein part. I see that they were unhappy for a long time. This is not a huge revelation. Usually marriages don't just collapse. And 2019 wasn't that long ago. And maybe the pandemic interrupted. A lot of people are getting divorced during the pandemic or have decided to and escalate. You know, it escalates already existing problems. But I thought the connections with Jeffrey Epstein at this point are very tenuous at best. He visited him for sure, knew him, went to the house.

But still, I find it a strange article. Yeah, it really feels like feeding into this whole, all right, he's... I mean, I think really wealthy people don't deserve a hall pass and the idolatry that exempts them from scrutiny or regulatory standards and so on. But at the same time, I don't think being really wealthy means that a legitimate news outlet should start inferring... I mean, basically, let's call this what it is. He had contact with Jeffrey Epstein, so they're inferring that Bill Gates has done something wrong. I'm not sure what they were inferring, because it didn't go anywhere. Well, that's the whole point. Yeah, but even when the Wall Street Journal says something like that,

that's essentially what they're saying. Like, uh-oh, where there's smoke, there's fire. And I just— The only thing that was in there was I think Melinda Gates was made uncomfortable by him and didn't want to do stuff with him. And Gates continued. And at the time, before he was convicted, he definitely was a figure in the philanthropy circles and thought of as a genius guy. I don't follow Epstein. Well, okay.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this may not be the first time that a wife is uncomfortable with who her husband hangs out with. I've heard that a few times before. I have trouble believing that Melinda Gates... Look, I don't know the relationship. It's none of our business, quite frankly. I have trouble believing that their divorce started to fray because she was angry that he was hanging. It just feels like so click-baity beyond... It was. I donity beyond it was it just feels what's your point here what's your evidence what are you saying it just and i don't believe i have trouble and supposedly lawyers are going on background it just felt really like it felt really like shoddy i would like to see actual reporting here if that's the case and that's

the issue i mean it was the same thing around you that he was put, all the rumors. Gates has been like a magnet for the vax rumors, which is weird. But this was a little funny. I was just going to say, before I got on here, someone, I'm not going to go into it, but I was at a dinner 100 years ago, hundreds of people. And Epstein was sitting three or four seats down. Apparently, I didn't even meet him. And someone was insinuating that I knew something. I'm keeping things. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't feel safe around you. It was ridiculous. I never even spoke to him.

But again, guilt, it's not even guilt by association. It's guilt by proximity. Yeah, I didn't know quite how to respond because I was like, someone was like, it's so sad, Kara Swisher. I was at a dinner of hundreds of people and he was sitting three seats down and I don't I never even met him like okay what do you want me to do like leap the table and kill him at that point it was weird it was a weird I get it it was like but it was interesting and it's just Twitter so I don't really care but all these people were like ah she's involved in the Epstein's game like literally at a dinner of hundreds of people was so strange at which by way, many people were at. I don't know how you can make the whole room guilty

for being in the same room. There's a lot of this going on. Strange. Did you see the, oh, I'm not even going to go. There was a total hit piece in the New York Times on Andrew Yang and Bradley Tusk. I didn't think that was that much of a hit. They're controversial.

Bradley Tusk is a controversial. I know Bradley, by the way, and by association. I actually have had lunch with him. Hit piece. Do you think? I don't know. What? What?

I don't know. Okay, let's review. This is typical political reporting. Come on. Let's review. People are concerned about his conflict of interest. The only people concerned are people shilling other candidates. And their big smoking gun was that Andrew Yang

said he liked scooters. And Bradley Tusk has an investment in Lime. And by the way, Andrew made that statement before he met Bradley Tusk. It was a hit piece where the blows don't land. And it's like, what is the point of this article? Look, Bradley Tusk is a character. I dealt with Bradley a lot because of the Uber stuff. He worked for Uber for a while. And so he's definitely thrown some punches. And he's a fascinating figure. And I think he's just like a lot of political figures. He happens to be a local one in New York. And he was deputy, I think, governor, right? Or whatever. He was deputy governor in Illinois. He worked for Schumer. He basically was the mastermind behind the Bloomberg election. And God forbid, now he's financially very successful. So,

uh-oh, conflict. I think the idea was, here's the people influencing Andrew Yang, which he's very much a part of that campaign. And so, he's a high-profile political operative, and you're going to get that story. And I think it's a totally justifiable story. And if you're a political reporter in doing that, it's the question is, is there actual influence? We'll see. But pointing out the relationship, I think is important. Who's the people around the candidate who's ahead for this job, which many people feel he's unqualified for? I know you're a supporter of him, but a lot of people think he's not qualified for this job. And I think that's a legitimate thing to talk about. When you read that-

Including his, by the way, let me just finish, including his entrepreneurial history. And I think they've been doing those pieces. And that's fair game if you're running for mayor of New York. But go ahead. Andrew Yang, the byline on this is, Andrew Yang's relationship with Bradley Tusk, a tech investor has raised concerns about conflicts of interest if he is elected." And it literally, okay, so who is not, by the evidence they roll out here, then essentially unless you're a junior at Berkeley and your only accomplishment is writing for Mother Jones, then everyone is conflicted and raises concerns. It

creates this, it creates this like, when you have some, a platform as credible as the New York Times and you have that sort of headline, it kind of creates this notion that, again, guilt by proximity. The reporting here never, you read it and you go, you kept waiting for something that appeared to be an actual conflict and that might not serve the citizens of New York to a greater conflict than any other campaign ever. It just, like, what was the point? It felt, well, I'll put the question back to you. It struck me that, okay, the New York Times does not want Yang to be mayor. Is that fair?

No, I think he's the frontrunner. No, I don't think that. I think that's unfair. You think it's just scrutiny of the front runner. I think he's the front runner and Bradley Tusk is a high profile political operative and pointing out their relationship is important. I may not have, I think they didn't lay a glove on him in this particular one.

And pointing out his entrepreneurial history since he talks about it is a good idea. So I think this is all about being the front runner and you're going to get a story about his wife. You're going to get a story about, and no frontrunner thinks it's fair, right? Nobody, like if whoever, if it was Maya Wiley, they'd be doing like, okay, here's the things, let's tell you about her. And when it looks like, you know, a lot of people in New York, by the way, every time I interview someone who's in New York or they're like, even Fran Lebowitz

was like, who is this guy like what like and so I think he's just I think it's front-runner scrutiny some of the pieces will land some of the pieces won't look the Olivia Nessie actually wrote a great piece in New York magazine about the Biden administration I think she had a great line she said they you know the way that he got attacked by the press through the early campaign especially being out of touch he said they it made them bitter and brittle and they're still bitter and brittle like they don't like the press even though you you know you think about the the trump administration as being bad with the press she was making the argument nobody

likes her coverage no that's what i mean and so they're gonna he's the front runner that's it says some of the stories are gonna be good some of the stories are gonna be unfair but they're looking for stuff about him to sort of try to put him in a place because they probably think he's going to win or he is in front by a lot, really quite a lot. And you have, it's very fair to complain about an inexperienced person running a complex city like New York. He's a very lovely guy. I know you both, I both know him, but I got to say, I'm like, wow, he could have, he could use a little more experience to be doing something quite so serious. That's what I would say. I think that's a fair criticism. I think that would be an interesting, valid story. I think

creating this notion of wrongdoing or, I don't know. They didn't land. Neither of them. No one cares about his entrepreneur experience, and this one didn't land. Well, them. No one cares about his entrepreneur experience and this one didn't land. Well, it appears in the New York Times, though. Anyways. Well, we'll see. Guilt by proximity.

I don't care. Guilt by proximity. You're right. You're right. And I'm sure there'll be now a picture of him with someone bad

sitting next to them 10 seats away at a movie theater. Well, you know what? Andrew Yang uses Microsoft Windows and I don't know if you've heard,

but Bill Gates has hung out with Jeffrey Epstein. So this guy is not qualified to be mayor. Oh, Scott. You know, you act like newspapers don't sometimes just not make mistakes. It's a process, let's just say.

Anyway, let's go. Speaking of media, we're going to go into big stories. We were live tweeting and the internet watched as Elon Musk's host at SNL and his beloved cryptocurrency Dogecoin took a tumble among the moments on the show. Elon called the cryptocurrency a hustle. My question is, what is Dogecoin?

I'm glad you asked. It's a good question. Well, it's the future of currency. It's an unstoppable financial vehicle that's going to take over the world. I get that, but what is it, man? I keep telling you, it's a cryptocurrency you can trade for conventional money.

Oh, so it's a hustle. Yeah, it's a hustle. Why didn't you say that, man? That's Senthis steadily climbing stock tumbling, crashing by 30%, although the crypto token is still up more than 10,000% in price this year. Almost immediately after Elon Musk made his first appearance,

Robinhood was forced to pause all crypto trading order updates. As a reminder, Robinhood had to make a similar pause back during the GameStop frenzy. But then the next morning, Elon tweeted that his space exploration company, SpaceX, which has contracts with NASA, is still launching a satellite called DogeOne

on a mission paid for with Dogecoin. By the way, this month, the House passed a bill, which is backed by crypto lobbyists, to create a working group to regulate digital assets, which they should be doing. I don't really care who backs it. So what do you think, Scott? He was somewhat funny, correct?

You were expecting disaster, as we can go to our tape. No, I wasn't expecting a disaster. Look, I think it's a huge win for him. Yeah, talk about why you think this, because you were critical of this appearance. You were. Look, if you had Annie Leibovitz photograph your daughter's bat mitzvah, little Rachel is going to look gorgeous. It's going to be great for the family. And Annie Leibovitz's reputation goes down. So in this instance, Rachel is Elon Musk.

And Elon Musk, Saturday Night Live, think about SNL as a concept. Okay, all right, okay. For 41 years, it has been one of the greatest amalgams of creativity, writing, set design, courage, intersection between politics, society, and economy, venue. I mean, I watched the A-Team for two years. I've watched Happy Days for five years, Breaking Bad for eight years, Game of Thrones for eight years, and Meet the Press for 20 years.

And I've been watching SNL for four years. What they have pulled off, the talent there. Indeed. Lorne Michaels. The talent there is extraordinary. Yeah. It's Lorne Michaels. Let's give him this. Lorne Michaels. The talent there is extraordinary. Yeah. It's Lorne Michaels. Let's give him this.

Lorne Michaels. When Annie Leibovitz shows up to Rachel's bat mitzvah, Rachel's going to look great. So it was a huge win for Elon Musk. I mean, this was like, talk about likability police. Like, I have Asperger's and here's my mom. I mean, okay, I thought he was going to talk about his new book on gender balance and personal loss. I mean, it was like literally, it is huge. He was very fuzzy. He was warm and fuzzy. Huge, huge win for him. Quite frankly, I think it was a- It was the charming part of Elon.

Let's be clear. There's lots of parts of Elon, you know, and he managed to poke fun at himself. He's the richest guy in the world. He had a good time. He had a good time. Look, it was a big W for him. Or a mask. Did you see that? I was like, wow, barn door horse. The guy who said in March of last year by April, cases would be at zero and that the whole panic over the pandemic was stupid and called stay-at-home orders fascist. Anyways, a huge win for him. He came across as likable. I thought he was funnier than, he was the least funny person who's ever been on that program. And he's probably the funniest guy. He's absolutely the funniest founder

of an automobile company. Yeah, yeah. He's funnier than, let me just say what I was saying to you last week was he's a very funny guy. He's actually compared to a lot, most of these people are humorless. Elon is not humorless.

No, he's got a good sense of humor. He does. It's juvenile at some points, but it's actually, he did, he was, what I kept thinking was, oh my God, he put on another costume.

He had another costume. Like, he was game. And you know that? It looked like he was enjoying himself. Yeah. Good for him. It was a nice moment. I thought it was really nice

with his mom. Yeah. But I don't, I think a loser- The Asperger's thing. Yeah. No getting around it. I went getting around it I went for him I went for him

alright so what do you think about his the only thing that I that I called attention to was when he said to the moon and I think he was he was

there's a lot of different memes going on my son informs me but do you think the SEC will investigate that I don't think so I think

I don't no I don't think the SEC will investigate the thing that was a totally the hustle was a joke He could say it was a joke. Everything about that show was forgettable. The thing we will see over and over in hearings is when Elon Musk said it's a hustle. And if you look at the volatility of Dogecoin in the last week, it doubled. And we're talking about an increase in $30 or $40 billion in market capitalization.

And then it peaked that day. And then by the time Weekend Update came on, it had like lost the value of Clorox. I mean, it went down $20, $30 billion. And so the question is, but it's free speech. So I don't know how you go after him for that. If, you know, he's creating to a certain extent that one of the criticisms of Dogecoin It's free speech, so I don't know how you go after him for that. He's creating, to a certain extent, one of the criticisms of Dogecoin is it has no business use.

But at the same time, if he starts launching rockets and people pay in Doge to launch their satellites, that creates a business use case. I think it was a joke. He could say it was a joke. I don't know what else to say. I think it was a win for him. He looks, you know, think about it. Someone asked me, what other person could pull this off among the billionaires? You know, Bezos, maybe. Mark Zuckerberg has been on SNL just for a second when he stood next to Jesse Eisenberg during the social network. Never could do it. Never could do it. You know, Tim Cook, forget it.

Jobs is the only one who I think could actually pull it off. And he's not living, obviously. But maybe Gates, because he's such a goofball kind of thing. But I'm trying to think of who would be any good. Sergey Brin? Well, yeah, but that's the point. The point is this incredible- He's an influencer beyond.

The point is when you have David Chappelle or you have Adele, you have incredible artists. There's this nitro and glycerin of creativity and artisanship that is fantastic. I think when you bring on Donald Trump or George Steinbrenner or Mayor Giuliani, I think it's great for them. I don't think it's great for the show or it's great for comedy. But anyways. I don't think this was bad for the show. I don't think it was bad for the show. It was a big part of the conversation.

A big part. I think they got a lot. I'll be very. Have you seen the ratings. I don't think it was bad for the show. It was a big part of the conversation. I think they got a lot. Have you seen the ratings? I'm very curious what the ratings were. It's the third highest rated show of the season, besides Dave Chappelle and one other. Third highest rated show of the season. Good for them. It did very well. It did very well.

Smart for them. The PR team at Tesla and Elon Musk should be feeling very good about themselves. I thought it was a big win for him. Yeah, agreed. Okay. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We'll be back to talk to reporter and author Brad Stone about his new book, Amazon Unbound.

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Let's move on to another billionaire. Brad Stone is the author of the new book, Amazon Unbound. It's out this week. He is senior executive editor at Bloomberg and of course wrote the book, The Everything Store, which was the first part in this probably multi-part series that Brad has been doing. Brad, welcome to Pivot.

Thanks, Cara. So tell me about this. Obviously, you were going to do a sequel because when did Everything Store and this begin? I don't recall. When last we saw Jeff Bezos, essentially. Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment. The Everything Store was really about the first 15 years of Amazon.

It came out in 2013. But really, it's the rise during the dot-com boom, the near death during the dot-com bust, and then the remarkable reinvention with the Kindle and AWS and Prime, which kind of brings you to 2011 or so. And obviously over the last few years with Alexa and with Prime Video and with Jeff's remarkable transformation into a master of the universe and the subject of tabloid interest, I thought there is more of the story to tell. All right. So what are you thinking about the next iteration of Bezos away from Amazon and that period of time now in this? Why are you calling it Amazon Unbound? calling it Amazon Unbound. Well, what I mean by that is sort of unbound from the kind of normal rules of gravity that seem to impact most large businesses. You know, the bigger you are, the more complex bureaucracy, the less likely you are to invent new things, the more boring you

become. And Amazon has been kind of immune from that, right? With all the new stuff and with the massive acceleration of its core business. I mean, the first thing that I realized as I set out to do this was even the core business has started to grow faster over the past few years. And that's because, well, for many reasons, but the delivery centers are closer to our homes and they're doing their own transportation and they've been able to keep prices low. And, you know, so Unbound, it kind of conveys, you know, how special the business is and a kind of invincibility, which has been, you know, great for fans or investors or customers of the business and kind of terrifying for everyone else. Scott? So, Brad, always good to be with you,

talk to you. I'm a big fan of Brad's. Anyways, isn't Amazon, there's a lot of interesting things, and you write about this, this kind of regulatory arbitrage where they've decided that they want all of the upside of selling these products and revenues, but they don't want to take responsibility for it. There's a lot of interesting cases right now saying, well, if you sell stuff, you're responsible if the hoverboard blows up. Isn't that kind of their, or one of their superpowers here? Yeah. So it's a theme running through the book and obviously, you know, your guys' and our coverage of all big tech and, you know, at Facebook, they put it, you know, move fast and break things. And Jeff was always like,

move fast and don't break things. But the fact is that they built systems, really self-service systems to get operating leverage. And that was the marketplace where any seller could just sign up and start selling, or the transportation network where any driving, any small delivery company could sign up and start delivering packages. And what you saw in both cases was kind of havoc resulting. Yeah, the exploding hoverboards, but the knockoffs, just an onslaught of activity that came from overseas, often from China, where costs could be lower because sellers were closer to the factories. And then Amazon slowed down and tried to build systems to account for all this and to

create a little bit of friction. But of course, it was too late. And that's why you look at a period of a couple of years earlier last decade where, you know, people were buying, you know, there was real chaos in the marketplace and real chaos in the delivery network. So it turns out that Amazon isn't all that different from some of the other big companies. No, it's exactly, it's just things, not speech necessarily, or things, not propaganda. I would say, right, that makes the stakes even higher because it's the physical world. But as we saw with, you know, Facebook and Google, the stakes there, the integrity of democracy are just as high.

But certainly, yeah, there was a lot of impact from Amazon's very rapid growth. So can you talk a little bit about this transition that's happening now? He gave his last letter, right? And he was talking about where is, he stepped away from Amazon for several years, I think, or it was being run by a lot of these same people who are now going to be leading. So talk, sort of sketch out what it's been like, and he sort of returned during the pandemic a little more actively, or maybe I'm wrong about that. That's what I understand. Can you talk a little bit about what it's been like the and he sort of returned during the pandemic a little more actively, or maybe I'm wrong about that. That's what I understand.

Can you talk a little bit about what it's been like the past couple of years and how he's sort of obviously moved away from it slowly? Yeah. I mean, I sort of chart this path in Amazon Unbound where, yeah, for a couple of years, he was really actively involved in the new businesses, really micromanaging the Amazon Go stores and Alexa and Prime Video. He would call the teams in there to run through the documents for what shows and movies they wanted to pick up. So really hands-on in that respect. And in the larger businesses,

kind of letting Andy Jassy and Jeff Wilkie, who left the company, roll with it. But in terms of, you know, that was inconsistent. I have this great scene in 2017 where during the OP1s, he comes in and blows up the core business because he determines that the retail business is relying too heavily on advertising and he wants to see them profitable in their own right. But you're right, Karen, in 2020, he really did come back in a major way in terms of the pandemic response. But I think that that antitrust congressional hearing where he had to appear alongside Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar was pivotal. right? He wants to float above it. And I think probably that had a lot to do with him handing over the reins to Andy Jassy, but saying he's going to stick around to continue to, he loves to be an inventor, like Taylor Swift loves to be a songwriter. They don't necessarily get to pick that, but he wants to be an inventor and that's where he wants to spend his time. Brad, you know Amazon as well as anyone that's not working there. Tell us something we don't know about Amazon or make some predictions about what businesses they're selecting what's – the HQ2 team selects Raleigh, Chicago, and Philadelphia as the finalists, and Jeff blows up the whole process.

But they also identified the critics who they're really wary of, and you're in there. And by the way, everything that you were saying back then about Amazon going where Jeff wants to be, I think was fundamentally true. And I show how the helipads that blew up the Long Island City initiative were really there because Jeff had bought a helicopter and himself was taking flying lessons. So I just wanted to say that. Thank you. It's interesting. They do listen to this stuff, this criticism. Oh, they do?

Are you kidding? Oh, yeah. I come off of CNBC, and if I say something sideways, I get a call within 15 minutes. It's creepy, frankly. Yes. It's not odd. They watch us all. They're probably somehow listening to this recording right now.

Yes, yes. Okay, so that was a tangent. What was the original question again, Scott? Well, tell us. You know the company really well. What are they going to surprise us? Right. And what are they going to surprise us? Right. And what are they going to be doing?

Well, they've got a couple of high-stakes initiatives that Jeff hopes can be sort of meaningful growth opportunities. One is this Project Kuiper, which is satellite internet access. I'm sure he thought Blue Origin could send those Amazon satellites into space, but Blue is tardy, and its orbital rocket is behind. So, they did an agreement with ULA. But of course, this is in big competition with Starlink from SpaceX, and those satellites are already in space. So, Amazon is a latecomer there. And then healthcare is the other big initiative. And they are showing some promise with some of these telehealth initiatives that started out rolling out for employees that are now opening to the employees of other companies. They have some in-person clinics they're trying out.

I believe it's in Texas. And in a very Amazon-like way, they're developing devices, products that could go and somehow support that ecosystem or what they would probably call it a flywheel of Amazon services in healthcare. So that's another growth opportunity. But we're also talking during the week when Amazon just announced a massive multi-billion dollar debt sale. And the reason Amazon does that is for, well, the money is cheap and it's for expansion.

So more fulfillment centers, more countries, more AWS data centers. And that's really about intensifying the rather large advantages they already have. So the easy bet is that Amazon is bigger. It makes more of an impact on physical retail. We'll probably see more, actually, Amazon supermarkets in the future, perhaps other kind of retail supported by technology. What about their own transportation systems? That's been back and forth and back and forth.

And just, you know, the Jedi contract, that's separate. You know, the Jedi contract that Amazon was trying to do, AWS was trying to do, now they're going to suspend that and probably redo it again, which is good news for Amazon because they had lost it. Can you talk about, and then of course, Jeff himself is fighting the government over Elon's moon base or moon initiatives. So give us some insight of how they're sort of parsing out Jeff Bezos from Amazon and moving them apart.

Is there going to be a moving apart? Because he owns the Post. He has Blue Origin. He's got a lot of things going on that are just Jeff Bezos. And then there's stuff that's important to Amazon, including these government contracts. Right. Yeah, I think where it comes to Jeff spending his time, probably apportioning more of it outside of Amazon. He doesn't need to write the shareholder letter every year, run all the ST meetings.

I think he'll still continue to have an impact. You know, the Washington Post is running just fine on its own. He's got to pick a new executive editor. Blue Origin is limping along a little bit. So I do see him spending a little bit more time there. But I also report in the book, he's building this vast super yacht. And so I think that, you know, Jeff in retirement with- Hello, midlife crisis. Exactly. Oh, my gosh.

Why did they all build these super, even Steve Jobs had one. Because they can, Kara. Listen, listen. You wrote an article about Jeff Bezos and the tabloid. But you didn't answer my question, but I want to know about it. Well, it was a multi-part,

so I was going to get to it, yeah. All right, go ahead. Go ahead. And then I want to ask about this tabloid piece you wrote. Well, I don't think he's leaving Amazon, but I think he's spreading his time elsewhere. And on the AWS thing,

they lost the Jedi contract because Bezos bought the post and Trump hated the post, but miraculously, they might get a second shot of it. So that's a huge market and Amazon and Microsoft will be winners there.

And it's a further consolidation of this massive piece of tech toward the big tech companies. Right, absolutely. So you wrote a piece about Jeff Bezos in the tabloids last week. Can you talk about his transition from sort of background CEO, khaki pants? You know, you remember the pleated khakis and the kind of shitty button-down shirts. And now he's like

super buff guy. It's such a weird... And a family man to blowing up his personal life. But the most remarkable piece of it, and I had to go, unfortunately, deep into this squalid saga, is how sort of naive he was in early 2018 about how much the world would care that Jeff Bezos had a relationship. had a relationship. And the funny thing is Michael Sanchez, the brother of Lauren Sanchez, is of course obviously kind of the villain in this saga because he gave the information to the National Enquirer. But the funny thing is how he saw it more clearly than anyone, that Jeff and Lauren were having a relationship really out in public, going to restaurants, going to Blue Origin events, and he recognized that they couldn't hide this. And he, in some weird way, tried to get ahead of it. Of course, it's seen now as kind of a remarkable betrayal. I thought that was a brother, right?

Yeah, it was a brother. But I thought it was great that he got ahead of it. I kind of was cool with it. Yeah, he got ahead of it. What do you mean? He wrote that piece. He wrote, he's like, screw you. No, he leaked all the information to the National Enquirer. It's totally ham-handed. He got money for it.

The brother. Yeah, the brother. He claims to this day that it must have been someone else. It couldn't have just been him, that maybe it was a political conspiracy or the Saudis. And what I found diving into it was – and also the Southern District of New York investigated this because Jeff claimed that he had been extorted. And the prosecutors and the FBI ultimately concluded, well, they dropped the case. So it appears they have concluded that it was a much simpler saga, that in fact, Michael Sanchez was the sole source. I would be surprised if any information were to come out that contradicts that. But what does it say about Jeff? I mean, that he somehow had a blind spot for how interested the world might be in the very visible changes in his life that were happening, you know, quite out in the open. Now not, because he does pose. He does poses. He does, you know, he does flexes,

essentially. Looking good. He's a courtside at Wimbledon. Yeah, he's sort of enjoying that. Where does that go from your perspective? Because it's such a different Jeff Bezos than you and I grew up with. And I think that's really primarily Lauren Sanchez and her impact. And he's dressing well, and he's at these events, and he's on Barry Diller's yacht. And, you know, we'll see what happens post-COVID.

But I would imagine, you know, that in this new world, he is, you know, moving in those circles once again. Is he going to pull an Elon, essentially? Elon does it effortlessly and was always like this. I don't know that Jeff could pull. I was thinking about this during Saturday Night Live. I don't know that Jeff could pull that off, you know. Elon has a magical way of, you know, turning the, you know, the customers or the people in his orbit into fanboys. And Jeff has never, probably to the detriment of my book sales, Jeff has never been able to do that in quite the same way.

Even though his impact on the world in some ways is just as big as, if not bigger than Elon's. Well, you'd have to decide which one is. They're both quite impactful. I have one more question, and Scott has one. When you look at Amazon going forward, obviously, Andy Jassy, who you and I have known for a long time, is taking over, a very low-key guy, right? But a Jeff acolyte at the same time, but does speak his mind,

is a very talented executive. What does Amazon look like really under Andy? Or is it a bomber after Gates? Or is it a Satya after Gates, after bomber? Yeah, or a Tim Cook, right? On the bomber to Cook spectrum. Where is Andy Jassy's Amazon? Yeah, right.

Give us some insights about Andy. I know him pretty well. He's humble, right? And he presents a humbler target for Amazon. When you've got Jeff sitting there in the hot seat in front of Congress, the wealthiest guy in the world, that's a big target for critics and for legislators. Andy is in his modest suit, speaking in modest tones. And so I think in some ways he's a better figurehead for the company as it moves into this next stage, which will be all about regulation and examination of Amazon's market power as it should be. But in terms of the operating performance of the company, he's so cleaved from Jeff's rib that I don't know that it makes much of a difference.

The one big difference is Andy's just not an inventor or a technologist in the way that Jeff is. And that is, and so Jeff's saying, well, he's going to stick around and continue to invent. But when you look at the S team right now, there are many fewer technologists on that team than there used to be. There are a lot of operators. And so that's the big question. Amazon post Jeff, to the extent it is post Jeff,

can it continue to create new things in the way it has? Scott? Oh, I get to ask a question now? I get to actually ask a question? Oh my God, stop it, you big baby. You think I'm your Andy Jassy, don't you? You go out, you get pumped, you build a big fucking super yacht, and I get to run the cloud division. She said that you were her Steve Ballmer, actually. Do you see what I have to put up with here, Brad? I do. I know. You guys just got to start investing in this relationship. Anyways, nothing from Mother's Day yesterday.

Nothing. Anyway. Okay. Do you think Amazon should be broken up? And if so, do you think it'll happen? Yeah. That was a good question, Scott. No, thanks so much.

Let me just compliment you. Thanks so much. What's going to happen? Right. Because I don't see myself as a sort of advocate either way, let me answer it this way. I think the case is so much more difficult. When I hear the critics, the main street advocates out there talking about Amazon, I sometimes feel like they do not understand the complexities of this business, right? They don't understand how competition works on the internet, the fact that Amazon operates in these vast markets with a lot of competition. Shopify

is on fire right now in large part because of Amazon's failures with brands. Enterprise computing is huge. Microsoft and Google are major competitors. So I think it will be really difficult. And when you listen to the hearings, the quality of the discourse and the questions isn't all that high. So I think the impediment to breaking up Amazon is that it's enormously complicated. Frankly, they should all read my book and listen to this podcast to understand the issues better. And so it's really hard to get there. When you look at the slam dunk case that they once had against Microsoft and Microsoft has never broken up, I don't think Amazon is broken up unless it's voluntary.

So unless it's voluntary. And do you see it being voluntary? Not anytime soon, because they just have no interest in that kind of financial engineering. And Amazon, core Amazon, derives so many advantages from AWS. For example, Alexa is really an AWS product. Its brains are in the cloud. That was the intuition that Jeff originally had. So no, I don't see them ever voluntarily doing that. But, you know, a couple of steps down the road when maybe Jeff steps away and if investors are really clamoring for it because the stock price has stagnated, then you could kind of see it in a different era, but not anytime soon. All right.

But what will happen to them? What's their biggest threat? Their biggest threat is, well, the regulatory attention, even if it's not a breakup, you know, can lead to all sorts of distraction. That's number one. Number two is, you know, we're seeing a lot of turnover in the higher ranks of the company because the stock price has gone up, maybe because of some disillusionment with, you know, Jeff or the fact that he's stepping aside, less excitement there. It's an idiosyncratic place. So you need people who understand how it works. And I think the turnover is a problem. And then just the chaos that comes with being a huge retailer and the fact that there's still so much chaos in the marketplace and the fact that

the search results are clouded with ads and private label products, it opens up room for disruption. And that's why Shopify has had so much success and maybe even Facebook marketplace. So I do think, you know, just sheer competition is always going to be a danger to Amazon. Interesting. What's your third book called? Well, this was actually my fourth book, Kara. No, I know. What's your third Amazon book called? Right. What's the third Amazon book called?

Amazon, The Fast and the Furious? You know what? Kill me now. President Bezos? Kill me now because I cannot imagine that. You are writing this book called Amazon. Oh, my God. It's not like AOL where it just falls apart. I don't have any options on that one.

If this is The Empire Strikes Back, then Return of the Jedi. But no time soon. I need to decompress. Yeah, but what would it be? If you had to guess, we're making you be a Professor Galloway here. Yeah, return of- What would it be? President Bezos? Yeah, it's hard to imagine him as an effective politician. I think what happened with this book is enough time went by, and I was very proud of the Everything Store, that I thought I need to update my history if I want it to continue to be definitive. And if in 10 years, I feel like there's much more of the story,

and if Bezos comes back in some dramatic way, or has another chapter or saves us all from climate change, then there's going to be a better story to tell. The reason why I did this is because the last 10 years of Amazon are one of the best business stories of our time. And I felt like that was a great story that needed to be told. Dude, let me help you here. Your next book's on Tesla. Just stop it already. There have been many great books, including my colleague Ashley Manses. Let me help you command the space you occupy, my brother. Your next book's on Tesla. All right. Well, thank you, Scott.

So nice of you occupy, my brother. Your next book's on Tesla. Thank you, Scott. So nice of you guys helping each other. Two guys just helping each other. We met on a super yacht. Two tech bros. We met on a super yacht. Anyway, Brad, good luck with this book. Brad is a wonderful writer.

Have you sold it to Hollywood, all these things yet? That has not happened yet, Carrie. It may be that, Jeff, it's too powerful. Oh, that's true. If you want advice on how to go to LA and get nothing done, I'm your man. Okay. Great.

All right. Again, his first book was called The Everything Store, and his new book is called Amazon Unbound. It's on sale today. Is that correct, or now? It's on sale, yes, Tuesday, May 11th. Okay. At your friendly local bookstore. That's when this appears. All right. It's on sale now.. Tuesday, May 11th at your friendly local bookstore. That's when this appears. All right. It's on sale now. All right. Brad Stone, as usual,

you're a class act in tech journalism. Thanks. Take care, brother. Okay, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO, Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. 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. What are your wins and fails this week? Well, I just want to highlight, if anybody wants to understand retail or the internet age, Brad's first book, The Everything Store. When I was writing my book before and I had to write a chapter on Amazon, I read his book and I thought, shit, I just can't do better than that. It really is the, if you want to understand Amazon. Anyway, okay. I't do better than that. It really is the, if you want to understand Amazon. Anyway, okay. I'll start with my fail.

I think this guilt by proximity movement, I think it's just out of control, incredible. I understand we expect it from TMZ, we expect it from blogs, but when the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal start writing these articles, I think those platforms have so much credibility. I think they should act with more discretion and realize how much impact they have on people's lives when they start inferring that there's something

really up with Bill Gates, with his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and don't provide any substance, don't provide any evidence other than, yeah, he met with him, and then start talking about confidential divorce filings. I just, I don't think that, I don't think that fits to the credibility that is the Wall Street Journal. And I think, anyways, this guilt by proximity bothers me. I think it's a dangerous trend.

Yeah, okay. My win is just the unbelievable talent that unfortunately was overshadowed of Miley Cyrus. When she did that opening, that tribute to Mother's Day, her voice, she has a lyrically beautiful and powerful voice. Didn't love her other songs, but that was beautiful. Yeah, I agree. I just remember sitting there thinking, God, we're so fortunate to have artists like that brought to us.

Do you know Dolly Parton's her godmother? Yeah. I think she's an extraordinary talent. She is. She's compelling. She's another compelling person. Wrong show. You know, she should have been the host.

It was a shame it was overshadowed. I think she's an extraordinary talent. She was in that Chad one. That was funny, the one with Chad. I think she's just an incredible talent. It was my win as the extraordinary talent of Miley Cyrus. All right well i'm going to celebrate a woman too i'm going to win uh what which was there was a skit on saturday night live murder dirter uh which was about um mayor of east town oh i watched that last night oh it's so it's really good it's so good it's so bad that it's

good and i have a lot of relatives in that part of Pennsylvania, a lot of them. And I was like, oh, my God. And I was born in Philadelphia. People don't know that. Really good. Yeah. It's so good. And then the takeoff on it was hysterical. It was hysterical.

My daughter had a baby daughter in the murder. Murder, Dirter, an extremely Pennsylvania crime show. Yeah, that was the funniest part. Murder, Dirter an extremely Pennsylvania crime show. Yeah, that was the funniest part. Murder, Durter. Don't put your Wawa hoagie on the murder victim. You know what they're doing? They're doing what The Undoing is really good at. They are so cagey, those writers.

Do we know who did it? Who do you think did it? Every 10 minutes, every 10 minutes, you're like, oh, he did it. Oh, wait, no, she did it. Oh, wait, he did it. I know. Which one do you think did it? They set up all these people.

They're like. This is not over, so it's three more episodes, but who oh, he did it. Oh, wait, no, she did it. Oh, wait, he did it. I know. Which one do you think did it? They set up all these people. They're like. This is not over. So it's three more episodes. But who do you think did it? Well, I'm hoping that it's the priest and that we continue to cement the reality which is the greatest institutionalized pedophilia that is the Catholic Church.

I said, I think the boyfriend. I think the boyfriend. You think the boyfriend? There could be two. It could be the priest killed her and the boyfriend is the one hiding the ladies away in the bar kind of thing. I'm going with, I know this is going to be weird.

I'm going with the daughter. What? Yeah, I think the daughter. No, not the lesbian. She has that new hot girlfriend. No, no, no, no, no. Here's the deal. It is a great show

and you should also watch the Murder Derder thing. And by the way, if you want a Victorian Murder Derder, watch The Nevers. So there's all these- Yeah, you like The Nevers. So there's all these, all these bad-ass women and shows. Bad-ass women is a real area of, and also the Equalizer with the Queen Latifah is doing really well.

So a lot of bad-ass women kicking some ass. I really enjoy it. Murder dirter. You're right. It's a really, it's a great show. It's HBO Max, right?

Is that right? Isn't it HBO? Oh, it's HBO. Yeah, it's HBO. HBO Joey Bag Is that right? Isn't it HBO? Oh, it's HBO. Yeah, it's HBO. HBO Joey Bag of Donuts. Joey Bag of Donuts. HBO Diet.

I don't have any fails this week. I'm going to be a positivity this week. Positivity. Nice. Positivity for me. Oh, wait. Most importantly, oh, my God. Big story breakdown.

How was the weekend with the in-laws? Good. Great. Oh, God. They were great. They were great. That was a win for the Swishers. And in fact, my son was like, they're really nice. And I was like, I know. We're not nice people. Great. Oh, God. They were great. They were great. That was a win for the Swishers? And in fact, my son was like, they're really nice.

And I was like, I know. We're not nice people. Yeah. So it was a win. What nice people. That's nice. And it was a win. They were lovely.

They took care of Clara. We hung out with my son. We went out for Amanda's birthday is coming up. We went out for a birthday dinner. We had a great time. They're wonderful people. Do they know you're close with Jeffrey Epstein? You know what?

Oh, that was good. That was really good. That was good. I am not close with Jeffrey Epstein. I sat four seats away from him. I was being ironic. I was being ironic. Okay.

All right. This has been a wonderful show, Scott. Brad Stone is brilliant. He is brilliant. He's very good. That's the show. We'll be back Friday. He's Miley Cyrus level. Miley Cyrus. Scott. Brad Stone is brilliant. He is brilliant. He's very good. We'll be back this week. That's the show. We'll be back Friday. He's Miley Cyrus level.

Miley Cyrus. Okay. Kate Winslet is who I say. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the Pivot podcast. The link is also in our show notes. We love great questions. Scott, can you read us out? Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

I'm Andrew Todd, engineer in this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Miley Cyrus, an extraordinary talent. 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.

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