Pivot - Facebook pushes e-commerce business, Uber in trouble, eyes on Amazon Media Group… and a prediction: Sonos gets acquired

Episode Date: May 1, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about Facebook earnings during the pandemic and the company's push into e-commerce. They discuss Uber's reported lay-offs and other issues facing the ride-share company as their longtime CTO steps down. In Listener Mail and fan from New Zealand asks what the US can do to salvage our brand after our failure to deal with COVID-19 effectively. In predictions, Scott says Amazon is about to be the 2nd most valuable company in the world and that Sonos will get acquired. Meanwhile, Kara thinks movie theaters will get bought by and vertically integrated into studio systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration,

and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I am nauseous. You're going to the New York Times to do a podcast? I write for the New York Times.

This is just an extension of our relationship. That's like MSNBC ate Bernie Sanders and then threw up and created this monster called the New York Times Podcast with Kara Swisher. This is just... It's going to be lit, let me just say. What's it called? What's it called? It's called I Love Scott Galloway and Other Stories of My Life. Yeah. No.

It has no name. It has no name. It has no name yet. Really? It's unnamed. Remember how we named Pivot? So you know what we are? How did we name Pivot?

How did we come up with the name for Pivot? You came up with the name. I didn't like it. I wanted to call it Stable Genius. Oh that was and you said no yeah because it was stupid but go ahead uh there's that yeah and then oh wait so wait back to us did you ever see the movie broadway danny rose with woody allen a long time ago i don't try woody allen gives me the creeps so no well i think he gives everyone the creeps now but anyways back back when he was just a quirky genius i saw but i don't remember um yeah before he was sleeping with a stepdaughter or whatever it was so anyways uh that's about an agent this kind of tier two

agent who represents his lounge singer who hits it big and the moment the lounge singer hits it big he drops his agent you and i are are have decided to use vox as woody allen and then the moment the lounge singer hits a big, he drops his agent. You and I have decided to use Vox as Woody Allen. And then the moment we get a little Scotia fame, just a Scotia fame, you go to the New York Times, which I totally get. I go to Vice because ad-supported linear TV is coming back. Bartender! Netflix didn't call back. Let's make that a t-shirt.

Netflix didn't call. Why Vice? Because Netflix didn't call us. Let's make that a t-shirt. Netflix didn't call. Why, Vice? Because Netflix didn't call us back. Guess what? If we do a TV show, now Netflix will call back because Kara Swisher has standing. I don't know. TV show, have you seen us? Look at us right now.

This is not TV. I got rained on today, so I look like a wet dog. The only TV we're going to get is we look like the opening scene of Law & Order when they show the dead people. You and I look like good victims. Yeah, and then Gary Orbach standing over us speaking. My friends have been calling me and saying they saw the piece. By the way, I'm doing a show called No Mercy No Mouse on Vice. And they're like, I don't even know where to watch this.

I'm like, linear ad-supported TV. It's coming back. Bartender, get me my horse. A white guy. Get me my horse. What was the white guy ranting? That's what you said, right? It's coming back. Bartender, get me my horse. A white guy. Get me my horse. What was a white guy ranting? It's just, that's what you said, right? It's just what-

Oh my God, it's hilarious. Listen to me. Ad-supported television. It's making a comeback, Carol. Here's our relationship. You are naughty and like, you know, vicey, and I class up the joint and it works well. That is what's happening here.

And I'm trying to further class up the joint. By the way, we're still doing Pivot with Vox Media at New York Magazine, which we love. And I got to tell you, Pivot is a big, has money legs. Not just your beautiful legs, but many legs. And then I'm doing- Money legs or many legs? Many. Lots of legs.

It has legs. It has legs. I'm trying to use a Broadway term or whatever. Okay. And then secondly, I'm still doing the Code Conference. We're moving it around and deciding on different things. And you and I are going to do events. So just relax.

Everything. We are tethered together on this ship. And wherever it goes, down, up, Hawaii, we're together. So don't worry about it. I get it. But I am am. I'm just dating the New York Times on the side. You didn't ask me, you didn't ask me to ask this, but what's going to be different about your podcast at the New York Times other than Michelle Obama will come speak to you at the New York Times? What is different about it? That's one of the things.

I'm going to really, I've been expanding Rico Deco. It's been mostly focused on tech. And I really am very interested in the ideas around power, who has it, what it means, how power is changing, putting a lot of attention on power in different forms and not just the traditional forms like the big giant evil tech companies kind of idea. But what is power and what should it be and how should it change? I think post-coronavirus, we're all going to be rethinking lots of everything about our lives. And so I think power is always used in this way that I think is not so. So I want to bring to light a lot more wide-ranging things that I don't do in a tech podcast. I, you know, I have been doing regulators and politicians and some entertainment people, but I really want to dip heavy into cultural stuff, into ideas, academics, going directions. That is a little bit

more. But power would be the thing I would say is what is power. Thank you. That is what I'm By the way, at the New York Times, they're a bunch of perverts and freaks. You know that, right? There's some dirty little minces over at the MIT. Oh, my God, Scott. That's why they will never let me bring you in the building. I know you've been there before and got tossed out, summarily, but here's the deal. I did get tossed. You got tossed.

That's the right word, tossed. By the way, you know what I love about Vox? What? They didn't take any, they didn't apply for PPP, unlike those bitches over at Axios. They gave it back. They gave it back. Because they were shamed into it.

Shamed. We're going to find out that about 30,000 or if not 3 million organizations who instead of dipping into the wealthy investors' pockets, instead of forcing their millionaire owners to actually buck up and turn and maintain, you know, we need a nation of soldiers, not little bitch companies. We're going to find out that PPP. Call them little bitch companies. We're going to find out that PPP. Call them little bitch companies. I'm serious. PPP is made off times a thousand. This is going to be one of the biggest scandals that we start to uncover.

There's so much money. How can there not be? There are private schools in Santa Monica taking PPP that have the wealthiest parents in the world. It is striking the level of graft we're going to see. I have a friend- It's graft in plain sight. It's different. It's not fraud. It's just sort of like- But it's like anything else. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. To a certain extent,

you have to admire the Trump administration. It's like, I know, let's take the future generations of every person right now and borrow money against them to get the current rich richer. Yeah. And flatten the curve of the decline of wealth of wealthy people. This is your thing, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I like when you go into this mode. But listen, we're going to get started on other things. But just the message we want to give, because a lot of people on Twitter were confused,

that Pivot isn't going anywhere. Pivot is staying. It is getting bigger. We're working on all kinds of stuff. I should so be your last guest. I should so be your last. I mean, let's really burn the bridges. Let's burn the bridges of recode.

Done. Salt in the ground behind you. Done and done. Sorry, Eric Anderson, but that's happening. Okay. All right. Listen. Go ahead.

Sorry. Vote for Pivot for the Webby Award for Best Business Podcast. Voting is open until May 7th. We are in the lead. We're talking a lot about Pivot. We should probably give the people something real here. I know that, but I'm just saying, we want to win because we're super insecure and we need more awards.

That's really the situation. Anyway, let us start on stories. I will get eventually to Elon Musk saying, free America now. How about imprison Elon? I'm starting it. I'm starting it. Don't. Incarcerate Elon.

Do not piss that guy off, let me just say. All right. Oh, yeah. He's scary, right? Let's talk about our favorite supervillain, Mark Zuckerberg's call. Let's move supervillains over. Wednesday night, despite declines in ad revenue in March, Facebook beat expectations, bringing in $17.7 billion in revenue in the first quarter. That's up from $15.1 billion a year. That's impressive. On the earnings call, Facebook said usage is up due to the lockdowns around the globe. Messaging has risen about 50%. Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg positioned small business front and center at the call and the importance of Facebook and their economic recovery and encouraged them to build digital presences and storefronts on Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg also talked about the importance of their geo-investment in India

and converting bricks and mortar to e-commerce capabilities on WhatsApp. Talked a lot about WhatsApp and the untapped monetization. And the company isn't providing any revenue guidance for Q2. All of the stocks of tech companies are up. I was just looking at all the stocks. They dipped, of course, except for Amazon, but they all dipped. And now they're headed back way up. Any surprises about these earnings?

What do you think about this? What do you think about what's happening? All the surprises are just incredible. There's now, I mean, think about this. There's 3 billion people using one of their, or all, one or more of their apps. So there has never been a religion, an economic construct, a nation, a flag that has ever been as big and as powerful as Facebook.

There are more people that have a relationship with Facebook than Jesus, Allah, communism, capitalism, whatever it is. It's bigger than any continent at this point. And their ability to find new ways to monetize is striking. And in addition, there's this notion of, I'm trying to understand more about time. So time is based on the notion that there was this little dot

and then it exploded, and all time, supposedly before that, there was no time, which is hard to imagine. That basically time is a function of motion now, right? The moon rotates around us every 24 hours. We rotate around the sun every 365 days, but it's linked to progress. I like Stephen Hawking, Scott, but go ahead, keep going. Oh, this is such a Joey Bag of Donuts version of Stephen Hawking. All right. Go ahead. Anyways, but this notion of time as it relates to progress and motion, and I think that during periods of crisis, for some people, time stands still. And for some people, it accelerates in terms of their progress. And while every media company in the world, with the exception of Facebook and Google, is trying to figure out how many people they furlough, how they do chapter 11 again, if you're a radio company, Facebook is accelerating time around progress. Everyone else is trying to

stop time. Everyone else is trying to say, okay, we don't want time to come forward because every day we're losing money. So we're trying to delay time. We're trying to push off the inevitable. Whereas Facebook is doing deals in India to monetize WhatsApp, they are absolutely playing offense. And think about if you're a marketer and you want to do print or TV. You can't do print or TV right now. Where do you go to do a print ad right now? Where do you go to shoot a television commercial right now? If you're a WPP or any of these firms, all you're doing is talking about triage. Like, how do we save the patient? How do we fix things, right? Yeah, how do we? And then whereas Facebook, if all of a sudden you're making face masks and selling hand gel, well, how do I market it? I go on Facebook or Google and I can have ads running

in 60 minutes. So, it's just, we're in what I would call until about a week ago, we were even just 48 hours ago, what this earnings season marks is it marks the transition from the pandemic portion of the crisis that was crisis to consolidation. And that is now these companies are starting to consolidate their markets. They're going in, they're going for the jugular. You're going to see them swoop in and hire the best people from old media companies. You're going to see them play offense. You're going to see them do deals.

You're going to see them establish new relationships from the holdouts that were still spending money on Yelp or wherever it was, or on BuzzFeed. And you're going to see the percentage of digital marketing dollars from Facebook and Google go from 61 or 62 cents to 72. And the wind is going to return into even bigger sales. And they have money. They can get talent.

They can do everything. This is, you know, it'll be interesting. What I think is the most interesting part of this is the competition between these giants, you know, as they move into each other's businesses. You know, Facebook and Amazon and e-commerce and entertainment, you know, they're all, of course, making Zoom copies, which is, that's the other danger.

Now, luckily, they're getting bad reviews. The Google one is doing one. Facebook is doing one. Have you tried the Facebook one? Have you heard anything about it? No, I haven't. I just, it's, what I've seen, none of them are getting good reviews.

The Google one particularly is getting slammed. And, you you know they weren't doing it for the longest time and then now they're doing it it's just it they're like a big they're waving a red flag in the face of regulators like now that zoom is this we're gonna grab it um it shows like oh like they sort of like giants that suddenly oh look over here here's one piece of a piece of gold i haven't picked up i need to pick that one up, too. It's 100%. It's Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer for free. And what is Facebook doing?

They're like, well, we don't have a better product. I know. Let's offer it for free and take advantage of our incumbents and our monopoly power. Yeah. They have some issues around dial-in. They don't let – anyway, you know, it's not free. Free ain't free at any of these services. And they would be – I would stick with Zoom in a second.

The question is, will Zoom get bought? At the price, it won't, of course, because it's the same price. But they literally can go anywhere they want now. And the question is, if you go to each of them, Facebook and Google will accelerate in advertising and move into commerce. Amazon will accelerate in cloud. So will Microsoft. The acceleration rate for these companies is so massive.

And the idea that they're going to be regulated has diminished considerably, even though there's some noise out of it. But, you know, look at this FTC thing we talked about. You know, it just is, there's not a lot in their way. The highway is clear for them, and everybody else is sort of have has broken legs, essentially, and can't really they can't even they don't have cars. They don't have anything. And everyone will be struggling. And these companies will will rush into the breach, whether it's retail advertising. So what do we do now that we have the power shifting to The New York Times and Kara Swisher? What do we do? We start to say nice things about Facebook? No. We start to discuss this, what power is,

and really give backbone to people who are regulating these companies and citizens, the idea that citizens do have some ability. There is the governed and the governors, and they are not elected governors. And whatever you think of any of these people, they were elected, like whatever side you're on, they were elected. And you can talk about like difficult elections or voter fraud, but on the whole, this is an elected, these are elected officials and therefore

they deserve to have the power. And so the question is, will they be, you know, when you combine this financial might, the might they have, with the power over data, with the power over technology, with the power over talent, it's just mind-blowing what they could do coming out of this. Or they are doing. They are doing, and they will do. It just accelerates existing trends, but it truly accelerates them because it gets, it sweeps stuff out of their way. So the other ones that are coming are Apple and I think Amazon today. Amazon's today. What do you expect from them?

Well, I'm already skipping. Well, I already kind of, I'll make another prediction, but I skipped my prediction. I think Amazon becomes the second most valuable company today. I think that their earnings, I mean, look at the business. We didn't, okay at the business. Okay, obviously e-commerce, we know that's going to be crazy up. It's just a matter of how much crazy up. AWS is probably going to see a surge in activity. The thing that people don't talk about, what's the fastest growing media company over a billion dollars in the world right now?

Amazon Media Group. So Amazon Media Group is now, is soon probably going to be one of the five biggest media companies in the world. I'm not talking about Amazon Prime Video. I'm talking about Amazon Media Group where you buy ads such that once you have Huggies in your basket, P&G can advertise Pampers and say, no, look over here. And it becomes impossible. The in-store shopper marketing, if you will, is a bigger business than advertising. And Amazon's about to make it a bigger business than almost every digital media company with the exception of Facebook and Google. So it just doesn't, whether it's e-commerce, whether it's cloud, whether there are more,

more households have a relationship with Prime and go to church or have a pet or decorate a Christmas tree. So biggest cable company, biggest fastest growing media company, fastest growing cloud company, fastest growing e-commerce company, fastest growing or most competent backend fulfillment logistics company in the world. So look, tonight, post earnings,

and it's always dangerous to make these calls, Amazon becomes the second most valuable company in the world, and it's March to being the most valuable company in the world within the next year, if not the next 90 days. But you could see Amazon at the value of Boeing at 4 or 1 p.m. today. I think the earnings and the – I think the – it's going to be almost scary to listen to the earnings call tonight. Of scary? Let me read you a quote of that. This is part of a column that's about to go listen to the earnings call tonight. Well, speaking of scary, let me read you a quote of that. This is part of a column that's about to go up in the Times. But in the time after this crisis is over, I can say that I fear them more because they will be more unfettered than ever with much less pushback on them from regulators and politicians that had been building decent momentum before coronavirus.

Instead, it has accelerated their speed and tightened their grip on our lives. coronavirus. Instead, it has accelerated their speed and tightened their grip on our lives. And this kind of consolidation of power combined with a stronghold on data, automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, media, advertising, entertainment, retail, and even autonomous tech is daunting. It's daunting. Well, look, I think Biden, his VP, especially if it was Elizabeth Warren, I think one of them. That's the only thing that'll do it. Warren is VP. I think Biden, his VP, especially if it was Elizabeth Warren, I think one of them. That's the only thing that'll do it. Warren is VP. I think Warren's the only one that's knowledgeable enough and can even speak

articulately enough to it and isn't afraid of these guys. Everyone else is afraid. Warren. So, but I think it's almost a presidential platform to say that the best way to ensure we don't step towards tyranny, the best way to restore income inequality that the best way to ensure we don't step towards tyranny, the best way to restore income inequality, the best way to bust out of this dangerous cycle of the gross idolatry of innovators, the best way to ensure the stock market continues to go up, and that our innovators and true engine of growth, small businesses is oxygenated would be

a breakup. We are tripling the budgets, the DOJ. I know I sound like one song hair here. They're not going to do it in the middle of an economic crisis. I think they're not going to do it. I don't think Biden has the set to do it. Anyway, in any case, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about things that aren't doing so well, Uber and how they're faring these days. Spoiler alert, not well, as you know.

And a listener mail question. 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. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank.

Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize?

What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. 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. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Welcome back. Scott, it's Kara Swisher, who works for everybody.

Uber is reportedly on the brink of laying off. You are so easy. Seriously, what is the definition? I mean, you are literally like, what's next? I like myself. I don't know. I'm not going to apologize for that. Other than Fox, who don't you work for? Oh, I'm not working for Fox. And that is a no comment on that situation. Because you already work for them. I don't. I don't know. I'm not going to apologize for that. Other than Fox, who don't you work for? Oh, I'm not working for Fox.

And that is a no comment on that situation. Because you already work for them. I don't. I did. You already worked for News Corp. I did. I worked for Murdoch. I spent a lot of time with them.

Incredibly. It was interesting. It's kind of fun to be a little bit dirty, isn't it? I go on Fox every once in a while. I like it. I was not happy with that period of my life. Anyway, Uber is reportedly on the brink of laying off 20% of their employees as the company's CTO steps down. He's a really interesting person, that CTO, by the way.

The information was the first outage report that the company is planning tiered layoffs that result in letting go of 5,400 employees. Wow. Separately, Tuan Pham, who is really interesting, he's the chief technology officer stepping down the company announced this week. who is really interesting. He's the chief technology officer stepping down the company announced this week. Uber's CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, said that its bookings in most major cities was down by as much as 70%.

But the company has seen recent gains with Uber Eats, obviously, even as Lyft has tried to launch a food delivery service, which you really can't do in the middle of a pandemic. But will this be enough to keep Uber afloat through the pandemic downturn? Scott, what do you think of ride share? I haven't been in an Uber for months, for months, I guess,

or two months, a month and a half. This is the first year Uber and Lyft were publicly listed companies. So what up? Yeah, well, look, ride hailing, it's ground zero for, you know, this is the good news is they can variabilize down their cost structure. I think a lot of people are looking at ride hailing and saying okay is this is should this be a static ubiquitous part of our society should should 30 year olds who make a good living but not a great living be taking suburbans to the airport should they be should there be kind of a swarm of people turning on their phone because they don't have

minimum wage protection at their job, much less this job? There's a lot of flexibility there at GigWorkWorks, but should we be putting them in this construct that is effectively a payday loan where they just borrow against the value of their car in the form of deferred maintenance? Have we set up the ultimate Hunger Games where the people at headquarters split the value of their car in the form of deferred maintenance? Have we set up the ultimate hunger games where the people at headquarters split the value of Ford and General Motors until the stock declined? Now it's just the value of Fiat Chrysler. I think Uber survives. Lyft goes away or gets acquired. Maybe Uber consolidates them. But Uber is going to, as it should be, it'll survive. It's a great global brand, great execution.

Uber Eats has now got new life because of what's going on. They'll get some money. They'll get money, like Airbnb. It'll just be a shitty stock to own, and they're going to be a fraction of their former selves. And people are going to rethink, in a new world with consumer confidence way down, should 28-year-olds be taken off the subway

and put in cars roaming around. They're going to stay in Uber. I think the trend is useful. I find Uber useful. You know what I mean? I don't use it as much as when I used to. I used it more in San Francisco than here because they have better public transportation, and I happen to like it.

But I do think, and there's now scooters and other choices, some of which are owned by Uber, and some of the bikes, which are really helpful. I'm going to be trying out a couple of electric bikes in the next couple of weeks. But it's I think it's not. You're right. It's going to be a smaller version of what it was. And the Uber Eats, you know, Amazon has been in this food delivery business. The others have been eating around the edges, so to speak.

But, you know, people like Uber Eats, but I've been using Caviar. I've been using Grubhub and stuff like that. I like Caviar too. Yeah. It has the best restaurants, I have to say. It has really good restaurants on it. I think it's sort of the fancy version, you know, for something. They do a nice job. They do. They do. They're great. Their app is great. But I suspect the issues around all these things is the amount they take from these restaurants, which is, you know, I think is really daunting for a lot of restaurant owners. But I do think you're right. Smaller, it'll be, I don't know, maybe it won't even be public anymore. I mean, sometimes, you know, if it's sort of in this sort of shitty zone of stocks, what does that do? this sort of shitty zone of stocks. What does that do? Yeah, but still,

a take private on Uber would be huge. And typically companies get taken private when they're profitable and they want to layer on debt to finance the acquisition of it going private. It'd be hard to imagine somebody financing the take private of Uber, given that even at this stock price, I'm thinking of one person

who would take advantage of this. Is it Silverlake? Because he is in all of them. I always used to think he was going to consolidate all of them globally in order to finally make money. But can you see the Saudis in him coming in here? They have pieces of Didi. They've got pieces of Ola, I think.

He's got pieces of all of them. And so I'm not sure about Lyft. Maybe he's even in Lyft. But I just think a global uh ride sharing business with delivery attached to it and other things but why what what economies of scale do you have other than brand out of rolling up dd and grab and all those brand brand yeah i don't i don't know i think right now i would bet masa there's probably logistics and computing above them all i think masa and piff right now are probably they've had their eyebrows singed so badly oh he's going right

back in i think you don't know him i think he's like double down yeah you know you saw the saudis buying a piece of live nation they're gonna this is like people with money are gonna leap in here and get i mean if you had bought into facebook or apple or amazon about a month ago you'd have done rather well especially amazon because they all dipped like crazy and then well amazon's up 30 this year yeah today that's i mean so i was you would have done rather well and i think a lot of people with cash like the saudis are going to just jump right in there um but so so lyft what you think lyft will be gone? Just gone, just gone. Lyft doesn't have the brand. I mean, it has all of the calories and under the great taste of Uber.

It's, you know, ride hailing is a menace to society. It's bad for the environment. It absolutely accelerates income inequality. It takes people off of transportation and reduces the need to make the requisite investments in long-term thinking around infrastructure and investing. But it doesn't have the global brand. Yeah, it's only in the US, right? Yeah, and some other countries. Yeah, it doesn't have the scale. It doesn't have Uber Eats. It doesn't have Uber Freight. So I think Lyft is most likely—

Why would Uber buy them? Why would Uber buy them? Oh, just for scale and to get rid of a competitor. You know, just overnight, you're the only game in town. Well, that's what's interesting here. Is this consolidation or is this Cosmo and Urban Fetch, right? Where it just becomes such a bad business and it starts a downward spiral. But to your point, there's still a lot of wealthy people. I absolutely love Uber. I spend $2,000 to $3,000 a month on it and I hate myself for it.

I think it's a minus. It's the price that's going to change and i think that's an issue now it's interesting ironic that you were talking about you know the dame the damages that that these ride sharing services because i john zimmer was uh the guy who was the ceo president uh he talked a lot about sort of the saving of the environment early on when i met him and he was he kept talking about 80% of the car isn't in use. And it was started in a much more hippie, hippie sort of style, that company. And had that, had that, has that reputation and has that, that vibe compared to sort of the death star that was Travis Kalanick at Uber. And so it's interesting that, you know, again, lovely guys,

much, much less aggressive than Uber was. But you're right. I think they've got a lot of, that's a tough business. But you were zeroing in on the thing here. And that is, if a company has a lot of negative externalities associated with it as it relates to society, if they are resulting, if their workers aren't making enough money, then it's simple. You tax them and you enforce minimum wage and employee, not contractor standards. And Uber goes on to be a great company that's only worth Clorox, not worth General Motors. So they'll have lots of driver's ability. I think they'll be pressured to giving them rights. I think that they will have to treat them that way. money on their stock options, but there's a redistribution of some of that, some of that income security to their drivers. And quite frankly, riders should be paying more. So there just needs to be a redistribution

of stakeholder value here. Things to come at Uber. I'm sure Dara Khosrowshahi did not think this is what he signed up for. He was already, you know, he thought a very different scenario here. Anyway, we got a listener mail, Scott. You've got, you've got,

I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hi, Cara and Scott. This is Derek from New Zealand. Some countries, such as my own, and others like Australia and Germany are starting to get this crisis seriously under control. While America doesn't have in place

the testing and contact tracing that successful countries say are key to their progress. What would you do to protect the international brand of America after not being able to handle this crisis as well as others? Are there any equivalents to this situation in business? Does America need to pivot? Oh my God, we just got dunked on by New Zealand. What the heck, Derek? By the way, let me just say, it's a nation of not that big a nation, but Jacinda Ardern, it's 5 million people, I think. Jacinda Ardern has done incredible leadership there. And again, it's a smaller country, there's more land and everything else, but nonetheless, There's more land and everything else.

But nonetheless, they've done a great job. And so has Germany under Angela Merkel, who I would be dating if I could. That's a twist. I wasn't expecting that. I just wanted to add that in there. No, I love Angela Merkel. You love Angela? I love her.

Angela. I love Jacinda Ardern. I love all these lady leaders. A PhD in quantum chemistry. She's just a skosh different than our leadership. I will put her on my new podcast. I will have Angela on. We will have a ball. We'll drink schnapps. Versus Fordham attendee Donald Trump. He doesn't talk much about his years at Fordham.

I would love to have Donald Trump. He'd never sit across from me. Anyway... Angela. Angela. But here's the deal. Does America... Oh, I love their accents, but they just dunked on us. So what do you think? Scott, if you were in charge of brand US, what would you do? And what would you do? How do you rebrand the United States, Mr. Marketing Professor Man? seventh or you know we don't know if we're in the second ending or the seventh ending of this pandemic and regardless the key to restoring our brand in the short term uh around you know and trying to dial down the gross incompetence uh i mean there's a couple things one a brand is you

want to do your brand image the positives and negatives and then say what negatives are getting in the way of us reaching our aspirational brand identity. Right now, we have this incredibly negative brand image. That is what we are, and that is we are grossly incompetent. Well, that's not really a branding event, is it? Well, that's my point, but it's part of our image. So in the short term, all we need to do or all we have to do, all we should be focused on in the short term, is dialing down this association of gross incompetence

that this administration has levied across a nation of 6% of the people that now has a third of the deaths globally. As far as we know, a lot of people, Trumpers will dive into my Twitter and say, well, you don't know the numbers are real. There's just no getting around it. We have fucked this up like seven days and on Sunday. We have to manage the apex of the relapse, whether it's an army of tracers, whether it's more vigilant testing, whether it's being the first to find and distribute a vaccine or a therapy, our chance to pull, you know, a semi-dead rabbit out of the hat here will be how well or not well we manage the peak or the apex of the relapse. And then long-term, medium-term,

there's really, and again, we get a ton of, I'll get a ton of crap for this. And people always say to me the same thing on Pivot, stick to business, stay in your lane. The branding event, the branding event for America that re-cements our position

as the good guys and the good gals is simple. Biden takes 42 of 50 states in November. Everything about the brand that has been eroded here that is wonderful about america and that is empathy generosity courage a comedy of man a lack of stupidity 42 of 50 how about it's morning in america it's morning again in amer. Anyone who's not, who's young will not know that's Ronald Reagan's. I have a post, that poster this morning and I thought that was so brilliant at the time I was in college.

I was like, whoa, do you remember that? Yeah, all my friends are total, I was close to liking Reagan and I, you know, the stuff he did around the age. Everybody liked Reagan. Well, the AIDS crisis thing really soured me on him very badly because I was right in the middle of that but um i that was a great brand make america is so obnoxious but it's morning in america was really so effective it was hopeful it was and so

was obama's also um but i people forget that it's morning in america so would it be like that would what would be the what is the pivot what do you say now with a hundred percent less suckage like well i don't know i almost think like you could just draft off i think you just take the the maga and you just take uh you just make you just take make you got to get away you take hold on all right just take the make and grade it out of it. Just call it America Again. Oh. Just, ooh. Boom. I just thought of this. Oh, my God.

America Again. America Again. Scott, that's, oh, I can't stand it. How smart are you? I should do this for a living. Oh, my God. You're really smart. You know. I keep this up.

I'm going to have a show on Vice. Every time I'm like. That no one can find. Who is. That no one can find. Every time I go, who is this lunatic? I can't even cuss on Vice. What's the point of being on vice

that you can't drop that bomb what you're not allowed to curse what we cannot make a deal in which we cannot be bleeped okay let me let's just put that in our contract along with some other stuff we're gonna ask for let's ask for stuff okay so america again you heard it here a a well what do you think what do you think we do? Answer the Kiwis. Is Kiwi a racist comment? No, I don't know. I used to call that Chris Liddell, who now works at the White House, used to be CFO. And he was fine when I used that.

What do you think? How do you think we restore the brand America? That's a delicious fruit, by the way. I think we pretend it didn't happen, as we are so good at doing. We pretend it didn't happen as we are so good at doing. We pretend it didn't happen. The pandemic or Trump, Trump, the whole thing.

Yeah. 40, 40 or 50 States. Right. We screwed up. We're correcting our mistake. Right. Not we're back.

Not America. Again, I like that. I like that. I'm trying to think, but I think we, we just act like it was a terrible nightmare. The nightmare is over kind of thing.

And, but say the word nightmare, um, you know, something like time to dream, you know, wake up, wake up from your nightmare.

It's time to dream something like that. How do you like that? No. Yes. Uh, yeah, sure. Not bad.

Uh, that sounds a little, I don't know. How about, how about all of us need to be one cell on the hand that bitch slaps that bigoted fucking weirdo? How about that? Will that go on a bumper sticker? No.

Will that go on a bumper sticker? No. No. I like America again. I like it. Let's go for it. Hey, Derek from New Zealand, it's all just all you want, but we come up with good advertising here. I got to tell you.

But hello to Jacinda Ardern. I'd love her to have her on the podcast. Thank you very much. Will you ask her? Thank you. All right. So, Scott, we're going to take one more quick break after that brilliance from you, and we'll be back for predictions. 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. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start? Claude from Anthropic may be the answer. Claude is a next-generation AI assistant built

to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. Anthropic's latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems, analyze data, and more, whether you're brainstorming alone or working on a team with thousands of people, all at a price that works for just about any use case. If you're trying to crack a problem involving advanced reasoning, need to distill the essence of complex images or graphs, or generate heaps of secure code, Clawed is a great way to save time and money.

Plus, you can rest assured knowing that Anthropic built Claude with an emphasis on safety. The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit Anthropic.com slash Claude. That's Anthropic.com slash Claude. Scott, earlier this week, we talked about whether the government should temporarily ban mergers for big companies during the pandemic. It's been discussed in Congress. AOC and Elizabeth Warren teamed up on a new bill proposing that since we last spoke. What else should listeners be ahead of the curve on?

Predict something, please. I'm going to do a quick prediction before you start by the way so amc is feuding with universal studios the theater uh chain uh and said it would ban uh their theater release after universal ceos the company plans to release more of its movies straight to streaming i think trolls was done uh there's all this anger among theaters i feel like theater owners are just going to go there and eventually we'll own all these uh we'll own all these chains you know disney will own the chain um and i think they're just saying full you mean the studios will own the distribution right but i think it's going to be full steam ahead on these releases and and as people get used to them and too bad amc you're going to get bought and it's going to be just one more means of distribution and i think the government's going to let it happen because

there's so many ways to watch movies now thank you you. Well, there's a lot there. And that is, if you look at companies that have added more than $100 billion in, say, a two- or three-year period, they all have one thing in common, and that is they've made extraordinary investments in being vertical, whether it's Apple opening stores. If you think about Facebook and Google, they manufacture, design, and distribute their products. And it's only a matter of time before Disney and the major content players that have the capital go vertical. And that is, you're right, they not only acquire AMC or iPic, they acquire Xbox handsets or they require Roku. So going vertical is key. The other thing that's playing out here is that as when I was growing up, my dad's boss had a slightly bigger house, but was in the same neighborhood. And all of the kids went to the same place because he made twice what my dad made.

Now, the CEO of a company no longer makes 20 to 30 times the average salary of an employee. They make three to 400 times. There has been a marketplace shift and adaptation to the extreme amount of wealth and the variance in the amount of money people have through extreme segmentation. I'll use two examples and come back to what I think is going to happen in movie theaters. You used to go to Disneyland and it was $19.95 to get in. And then you bought these stupid books of tickets and a ticket was for for Dumbo ride, and an E ticket was for Pirates of the Caribbean. And then you had to strategize and spend a ton of time thinking about, okay, does mom get to go on Pirates of the Caribbean, or does she have to go on people were no longer making millions, they were making tens of millions or hundreds of millions, they adapted and they said, okay, now we have FastPass. And for an extra $20 or $30, you get to cut the line.

And then we had VIP tours, where for $5,000, you and eight people not only cut the line, you go in the employee entrance, and if you just give the operator a hand signal, you get to ride it over and over and over again. So they have segmented the shit out of this product such that they can attract and tap into extremely wealthy people. The same thing is going to happen in movies, and that is within 12 to 24 months, you and me or anybody else are going to be able to watch the next installment of Star Wars for $250 at home seven days before it comes out in the theaters. Because there is a large population of wealthy people who will pay hundreds of dollars to watch the new Minions at home in the comfort of their own home. about it is this, is that one of the things that was a blessing, I mean, a real blessing for me going to a university high school in Santa Monica or West LA, is there were kids a lot wealthier than me, and I developed aspiration. It's like, okay, that kid's going to Stanford. He's smarter and harder working than me, but he's not much smarter and harder working than me. Maybe I could

go to a good college. And then there were kids a lot less fortunate than me. And I remember developing a sense of kind of empathy for them. And when we take the segmentation of our society and put everyone in their own weight class, it reduces a level of aspiration and confidence to the upside and reduces a level of empathy to the downside. And what are we doing now? We're going to take everyone out of movie theater. People, income and demographic segments used to mix at movie theaters.

And now they're not going to. The rich people are going to watch it at home. No, I think there's going to be movie theaters. And I would love Disney to run a movie theater because it would be a nice experience. Like Alamo Draft House. You will not go back to a regular movie theater. I will if they're not. That's it.

That's segmentation. No, you're wrong. You'll go to Draft House or Ipik. You won't go to a regular movie theater. No, but I will go to movie theaters if they were even slightly nicer. There has been no innovation in movie theaters. They're still skanky since I was a kid. Well, that's it. I pick.

Yeah. I know that. I go to Alamo Draft House. I actively go there. I actively. They're segmenting. They're going, okay, you're not rich. You go to a place with sticky floors. Yeah, but it's not that much a price difference. I'll tell you that. The difference in ticket price at Alamo Draft House is just you can eat there. The price difference is not that much a price difference. I'll tell you that. The difference in ticket price at Alamo Draft House, it's just you can eat there.

The price difference is not that. Oh, my gosh. You're such a New York Times podcast elitist. People can't. 95% of America cannot afford to go to IPIC. It's $25 a seat. It is not at Alamo Draft House, but it's the food that they make the money on, I suspect.

I'm just saying ticket prices. The dog loves taking his kids to a kid's show and getting drunk. They can take the prices down and make a great Disney. Let me just say, as I know you haven't been on a Disney cruise and I, Kara Swisher, have, let me just say. What did you think of it? I'm kind of interested.

I was trying to get Bob Iger to come to something and he said I had to go on a cruise in order to do it. I paid for it myself. I went, I asked him, so Iger to come to something, and he said I had to go on a cruise in order to do it. I paid for it myself. I went. I asked him, so I thought it was flawless. I hated every minute of it, but it was flawless. The experience was like— You had kids of it?

Yes. And by the way, they had tiered people, had better rooms, had less better rooms. That's a Titanic. Right, exactly. But the rooms that the less better people were, were great. The food was fine. It wasn't great, but it was good. And I have to say, one thing they did, everybody got soft serve all the time.

It just was, even though I just was like dying inside, I could not deny the quality. I wanted to do the crazy Caribbean. I want to do Disney. I'm past that, though. I'm more about, I want to go on a Virgin cruise because I think I'll maybe have my first threesome with a bunch of hairdressers. That's how I imagine a Virgin cruise. Isn't that how you imagine a Virgin cruise? No, no. Hairdressers and the dog mixing it up a little bit? bunch of hairdressers. That's how I imagine a virgin cruise. Isn't that you imagine a virgin cruise? No, no.

Hairdressers and the dog mixing it up a little bit? Why would hairdressers talk to you? I don't know. All right, so is that your prediction? What is your prediction? I considered that. Oh, okay, so I got a bunch. All right, all right.

Quick, quick, quick. And this is dangerous. Amazon becomes the second most valuable company in the world this afternoon. Zoom, we predicted last week, was going to go down to $100. It's already dropped from $170 to, I think, $130 or $140. Well, that was because of the Facebook, Google stuff, yeah. And you're going to see an absolute. We're going to see big tech go from 24% of the S&P by the end of the year to 28% to 30%

as the market wakes up from its consensual hallucination and absolutely throws up and tests new lows in the next 90 days. But anyways, my real prediction is today, post earnings, Amazon becomes the second most valuable company in the world. All right. That's a good one. That's important. And then we will see what they will do with that power. And Jeff Bezos has made a lot of money in the past couple of months. I'll tell you that. What is he going to do with it? He's going to Mars, apparently. Yeah. No, he's doing what he should be doing. He's not going to a movie theater. apparently yeah no he's doing what he should be doing he's not going to a movie theater i'll tell you nothing no no he could buy he could he could i was thinking about he could buy

paramount pictures he could or paramount who owns paramount viacom i think it's viacom he could buy ferrari ferrari's 24 billion dollars that would be a baller move to buy ferrari in the midst of a midlife crisis why that's insane because he can. That's even a, that's a lift for him. That's a lift for him, $24 billion. Wow, that'd be awesome. Do you own a car company? Would you do that if you were him? Of course you would. Would I do that if I were him? Of course you would. I don't know. I can't even imagine if I were him. I'm going to ask you a final question

before we go. What would you buy if you had Jeff Bezos level? One thing. What would you buy? Fox News and shut that shit down. Oh, I like it. Together we would do that. That's exactly what I would do. Actually, you couldn't do it because something else would just reemerge. Everyone said Bloomberg should buy it. But oh, another prediction here. I'm sorry. Sonos is going to be acquired. Oh, okay. The home is going to increase in importance for all of us

with distancing and with work from home. And we're going to invest more in our homes. And the number, the most undervalued brand in the home that collides technology with distancing and with work from home and we're going to invest more in our homes and the number the most undervalued brand in the home that collides technology with leisure and entertainment is sonos i love i have i have them and it's got great mps scores it's got a great ceo there they're in right now and their founder is great we we we had sonos at one of our all things conferences early on to debut them and it's been interesting. They were also, can I tell a very quick story here? They came to our All Things Deconference, and we used to have a room we called the Science Fair where sponsors

used to show off their stuff. They were showing off their first thing had a little box with a wheel on it, if you remember. The thing that controlled the Sonos device. We had Steve Jobs that year. We were walking. He wanted to see the science fair. So Walt Mossberg and I were walking him around.

And John Ehrenhardt, I think that was the founder, the CEO, was there. And he was a Steve Jobs fan like you could not believe. Just one of those, just like, I love Steve Jobs. He's my god. And Steve Jobs zeroed in on the Sonos display. And he walked over to the guy. And the guy's like, oh, my god, I get to meet Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs pointed a in on the Sonos display and he walked over to the guy and the guy's like, oh my God, I get to meet Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs pointed a finger at him and he goes,

I'm going to sue you. You have copied the iPod with the wheel. That is our wheel. He started like, I'm going to sue you. Jacket. He was amazing. He was a sponsor of ours. He

walked away and I was like, thank you for sponsoring All Things Digital. And he was thrilled to be screamed at by Steve Jobs, but it was a really interesting moment. Yeah, Patrick Spence is the CEO there now. He's very good. It's a company that doesn't, I mean, if you think about it, what other company has that kind of technology in the home

with a billion-dollar market cap? You're right. Somebody's going to acquire it. Okay. It might be a strange one. It might be like a Samsung or something like that. Okay, I like that, Scott. They're taking out.

This is so full of information, this particular pivot, which just goes to show we are here for the long run. We are going to keep making these fantastic insights. We're going to keep pivoting. We've gotten a lot of really nice tweets about people who were lifting their spirits in this time of woe. Oh, yeah, What a thrill. You're welcome.

You know what? You're welcome. You know what? We are. So just accept. Accept the love that is given to you by our fans. Anyway, Scott, it's time to get out of here. Don't forget, if there's a story in the news and you're curious about it and want to hear our opinion on, email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show.

And vote for Pivot for the Webby Awards Best Business Podcast. We want to beat Reid Hoffman. And if Masters of Scale wins, I'm not going to be happy about the situation. Anyway, Scott, read us out. Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Our executive producer is Erica Anderson. Special thanks to Drew Burrows and Rebecca Castro. If you like what you heard, please hit the subscribe button or download wherever you find your podcasts. Join us at the beginning of next week. It feels almost borderline optimistic, Kara. We hope some of that optimism is creeping back into everyone's lives.

Stay safe and we'll speak to you next week. 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. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you. Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Klaviyo turns your customer data into real-time connections across AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond.

Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM.