Pivot - Facebook wants to read your mind. What could possibly go wrong?

Episode Date: August 2, 2019

Kara and Scott talk about the debates and how questions about big tech...well, didn't really come up. They also talk about Amazon and Apple earnings and how "wearables" are having a moment. In wins we have FOIA and transparency around tech companies and how they interact with ICE. And in predictions, Scott says stop trying to make fake bacon happen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. Hi, everyone. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. It is. Is it nice? I'm here in Los Angeles. I actually can talk about this because I was, I was tweeted. I'm on the next season of Silicon Valley and I spent the day in my chair. Rub it in my face. I know, but I'm saying I'm a television star. I probably will win an Emmy. So I just want you to get ready for that situation. That's not true, Cara. You're just a star.

No, it was fun. I love, I love going. They have all the craft food. They've got all this stuff. It's kind of fun to have a trailer. I almost got locked in my trailer. Eric Anderson was with me and we got locked in and we thought, well, this is interesting. So it was great. And then we were also here looking at some stuff, some stuff for events that maybe you and I will do, Scott. And they had a cryogenics chamber, that cryotherapy, not genics. I'm not getting my head cut off, but it's one of those refrigerators. And I'm hoping for you to get in it at some point. It would be great. I like that because I want to feel 53 again. That's my goal. I want to go back. One was freezing. One was infrared something or other. The other, they put this suit on you and then they squeezed you like you're a boa constrictor. It was cool.

It's called Upgrade. It's this really cool, you have to upgrade your body. It completely made me think of you, Scott Galloway. I don't know what that means, but I'll go with it. But back to HBO, have you seen Chernobyl? No, my son has. He liked it. It's fantastic. It really is fantastic. There's a great line in there at the end, and it reminds me a lot of sort of the issues we're facing in America today. And the lead character says at the end that, you know, every lie incurs a debt against the truth, and at some point that debt comes due. Oh, yes.

And I just thought that was so profound and deep and meaningful. And I think about, you know, even what bothers me more than Trump is this notion, it feels like over the last 10 years, this notion that if you repeat a lie three times, it's the truth. Yep, 100%, Scott. This is an upsetting thing. I, in fact, was watching The Loudest Voice in the Room, which is about Roger Ailes. Isn't that fantastic? He is the patient zero of this shit. Oh my God.

And that guy is clearly a genius. I mean, we're pinging around here, but you and I both share an affection for TV. He was a genius in two ways. One was, and it seems obvious now, that media, anyone who goes into media typically goes to college and surrounds themselves with other liberals. And his basic observation was media has this crazy liberal bias and there's a huge opening for the other 50 percent of the nation. Incredible genius. And the second thing was he realized, OK, let's detach news from the truth and make it entertainment. Yeah. And that was really I think about that has been really damaging. Anyway, that will get us to this. Debates. Let's talk about the debates. make it entertainment. And that was really, I think about that has been really damaging. Anyway, that will get us to this. Debates. Let's talk about the debates.

Let me hear your thoughts. I only watched it on Twitter. So let me hear your thoughts. You watched it on Twitter? Can you even do that? I did. I consumed everything on Twitter. Okay. So I was hoping for you to go first and riff off it. I'm a little bit, I think it did their job because I don't feel like anybody was the standout winner or loser. The kind of off-card people who shouldn't have been on the stage, quite frankly, injected some very interesting things into the debate. I thought, you know, Yang had some interesting viewpoints. The thing, the leaders, I think, still came out kind of the leaders. The leaders, I think, still came out kind of the leaders. The thing that reflecting on it that I think is sort of strange and a shame is that the two, quote unquote, wins of the debates were seen as individuals, quite frankly, calling one progressive, calling another progressive a racist.

And that was the key moment in both all the debates was Senator Harris basically calling Joe Biden a racist. all the debates was Senator Harris basically calling Joe Biden a racist. And then the key moment, quote unquote, the key win from last night was Tulsi Gabbard basically calling Senator Harris a racist. And I wonder if what is that? You mean the end times Tulsi Gabbard? She was quite. Well, yeah. Tulsi Gabbard, who, you know, is an apologist for Assad and quite frankly, probably just shouldn't be on the debate stage. And I wonder if the Democratic National Committee, who is severely pivoted away from deciding that they're there to elect one candidate, which is what they did with 16 and Hillary, to putting anybody on stage, you are literally going to have 100 people decide to run for president in the next cycle because all of the people who have no chance of being president were on stage.

It was the ultimate branding and marketing event for them. Andrew Yang is now almost a household name. Nobody knew who he was. He did very well, as I predicted. Again, you didn't think he was much. And when I did that podcast, I was like, this guy's got some great ideas. I thought he injected himself with rather some smart stuff. He certainly doesn't seem way off base, even though he goes back to UBI all the time. Okay. But is being Oprah's spiritual counselor, counselor, being a modestly successful businessman with great ideas,

does that qualify you to get you on the debate stage with people who have served for 30 years? I don't. Yeah. But why does a career politician get to do that? I'm sorry. Like, like why do we have to take that?

Like as, as your, your, it's been your job, your entire life is to be a politician. Well, I don't'm sorry. Like, why do we have to take that? Like, it's been your job your entire life is to be a politician. Well, I don't know, because the only, I mean, the only president we have who wasn't a career politician has been a disaster. So I do think there's a filter here. And I wonder if the DNC needs to step in and start being a little bit, I think there's a balance here. I'm not sure that some of those people should have been on stage taking oxygen

away, because where we've ended up with these debates is the only people that are going to survive and get to the next round are the people who are able to come up with a gotcha moment in 60 seconds or less. And I'm not sure that's the accurate filter for distilling people down to president. I'll tell you, one thing I was struck by was the attacks on Obama last night. I was like, maybe not so much. Although I have to say, I don't think Obama's spoken out enough in this era. I know he's trying to remove himself, but it's not normal times. And I think he should, you know, stop playing basketball and do those kind of shoots. Oh, he'll come through. I think once they kind of sort out their stuff and the dust settles and we have a nominee, I think he's going to be an unbelievable asset.

I'm talking about the Trump stuff in general. I'd like to speak up. There's a general code among former presidents that they stand up because there's hair. I don't care. Guess what? New times. New times deserve new measures. I'm sorry. Too bad. It's not normal anymore. But I do think that attacking him was a mistake by a lot of them. They seem to be going after him and not Trump. Oh, by the way, your friend and the future ex-Mrs. Galloway, Maureen Dowd, had a fantastic column this week. She had one of the best lines when she was talking about to impeach or not to impeach, such a clear blue flame thinker. She said, never has there been anything so obvious. He's clearly triggered the need for an impeachment,

but never has anything so clearly obvious been so obviously stupid. And I thought that just perfectly summarized the situation. Except it just passed the halfway mark among Democrats in the House. So it may be beyond Maureen and Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, but there's 52 senators. I mean, what's the point of the distraction? I get it. I'm just telling you. Anyways, I thought she was fantastic. I thought that was a great article. Indeed. But let's get to tech. There wasn't much talk of tech there. You know, Dana Bash asked Senator Bennett, one of our favorites, about what to do about automation. He kind of gave not much of an answer. And then Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang mentioned Amazon unprompted.

But that that was not much was posed on the stage. There was nothing by it from from any of the CNN people about tech at all, which is fine. I don't expect that to be a big topic or maybe rise to it, even though there's been a lot of news about tech. Yeah, well, there's Yang again had a great point here. And it's not immigrants that have taken your job. It's robots and automation and a little bit of offshoring. But, you know, my sense is. That was a good point. And I think somebody, Clinton had this great moment in his campaign where he said, I forget, he went somewhere in the heartland. He said, your jobs, he said, they're not coming back.

And you'll have a lot of people here come to you and tell you they are, but these jobs aren't coming back. And I think we have to have that moment where someone says, look, we need to embrace a global economy. We need to embrace automation. You can't, I don't believe, I don't think you can protect jobs where you can protect people. And what we have to do with some of the spoils of that incredible automation and productivity is invest in some of those people who are the losers. We just haven't recognized the kind of reinvestment we need to make in the losers. I mean, in Germany, 60% of people under the age of 30 have experienced some sort of vocational artisanal training, and it's 6% in the US because we've drank the Kool-Aid that the only way to success is either a college degree or to drop

out and hope that you're Jay-Z. And there's got to be some sort of mid, there's got to be some medium speed. But he brought that up around automation. He was very good. So Amazon, should we talk Amazon and Apple earnings? Yes, we will in a minute. But first, just to finish the political stuff, Rico's Ronnie Mola talked about Google employees are giving more money to Elizabeth Warren than any other candidate. Buttigieg is number two. Sanders is number three. And what's interesting, and here's a quote from Ronnie's story, Google employees are putting their support behind Warren and Sanders because they don't think antitrust action would hurt Google much. A number of them told Recode that Warren's plan to regulate Google might even be better for it in the long run and would even be in line with Google's own ethos. So, anyway.

So, I have a personal anecdote here. When I was on the board of the New York Times, which I bring up every 90 days because I think it makes me sound more impressive than I am. Yeah. In a board meeting in front of the about.com CEO and some about professionals, I said, we should contemplate spinning about because it could get a $2 billion market cap. And right now it's being weighed down because everyone looks at us and goes, you're a newspaper business and assigns us a shitty multiple. And Arthur and Janet, and I do think there's a 10-year statute of limitations on transparency into boardrooms. So I am speaking a bit out of school, but I think I do have some

license. I walked out of the room and the about people practically French kissed me. I mean, they were literally, if you don't think YouTube employees or Google employees, Alphabet employees who work for the autonomous driving group or Waymo or YouTube are excited about the breakup and having options and participation directly linked to their efforts, which, by the way, by virtue of being who you are in information economy and thinking you're smarter than you are, they believe that YouTube, every person in every division of Google thinks they're the ones carrying the company. And they also recognize that, okay, if I'm growing faster than the core business, I'd get a higher multiple on my equity and I get the Hamptons house and the share in NetJets faster. So a breakup, while publicly no one can say they're in favor of it, I would bet the majority of the people at Google and Facebook, you don't think the people working at Instagram would like to be an independent company? Yes, they would. I know that. Yes, they say that. Oh my gosh, come on. AWS, I work at AWS. I want to be the only pure play cloud company in the world growing faster than every other cloud company. I want options on that company. Oh my gosh.

Agree. Spin me. Spin me round and round! But they don't want to spin them. Well, let's talk about these. There's earnings coming in. There's more to come, Amazon and Apple. And what was interesting, I tweeted this week, and it was part of a column I read, that Amazon now has 8.8% of the U.S. digital ad market, up 53% from a year ago.

And obviously, Apple did earnings. Thoughts, Scott Galloway? Okay. Okay, think about this. Amazon, all right, two words. First word, mine. Scott Galloway. Okay, okay. Think about this. Amazon, all right, two words. First word, mine. Second word, blown. Do you realize Amazon's media business, AMG, Amazon Media Group,

is now in the U.S. half the size of Facebook's? Tell me more. I mean. Is that how you say that? Did you see that coming? Go on, go on. Did you see that coming?

Amazon Media Group. We were all hoping there'd be a third player in the ecosystem. Like, oh, Evan Spiegel. He's so cute. And he likes Kara and Kara likes him. And like, we have a third. Unfortunately, it's Amazon. Amazon is coming for Google and Facebook.

We have never seen a company like this firing on all 12,000 cylinders. And again, the market's got their earnings wrong. They're like, oh, my God, for the first time in five quarters, Amazon's profits are down. That's the point, shitheads. When the executive team of Amazon comes in and updates Bezos and says, our profits are up record profits. He looks around the room and he goes, you fucked up green light every CapEx in the world because our core competence, our advantage over the rest of the world is despite the fact we're the third most valuable company in the world and over a trillion dollars, the marketplace lets us continue to reinvest 100 cents on the dollar. And the moment you get the marketplace stuck or addicted to the crack cocaine of profits like unfortunately Apple investors are, we lose our core advantage.

You are right. So this is exactly. Just throw the money down on the table. 100%. We're going to let it ride is what they're saying. Let it ride. If anyone thinks that anyone at Amazon was disappointed or wasn't expecting or wasn't preplanned to take their earnings down, all they want to do is say to people, I am so ridiculously fucking hot. I can be profitable whenever I want.

But guess what? I choose not to. I choose not to. Because I don't need to be. I can be profitable whenever I want. But guess what? Yes. I choose not to. I choose not to. Yeah. Because I don't need to be. The advertising business is fascinating. And because they have so much. Talk about data on people.

I mean, Google and Facebook obviously have a lot of behavioral data, but they've got buying data. And that to me is so valid. Like the amount of stuff Amazon knows about me is just really disturbing on so many levels. Crazy. Apple. It's like Apple. on so many levels. Crazy, crazy. Apple. It's like Apple. And they're very, Apple, Apple.

So what are your thoughts on that? You're contrasting them to Amazon then. But see, Apple was really interesting. If someone, I deal a lot with lawyers for different stuff I'm involved with. And one lawyer who works a lot with, back when I was an activist and stirring up trouble at companies, he said to me, I have access to inside information all the time. And if I traded on it, I would be broke. And that is, you think, that's the amazing thing about the market is it's just really unpredictable. If you look at inside information, unless it's really obvious, a company getting

taken out for $100 a share when it's trading at 80, but you never know how the market's going to react. And what was interesting about Apple's earnings was they missed on the services revenue, which is the recurring revenue. That's AppleCare, Apple Music, the amount of money they get from Google to offer Google as their core search engine. And I think that is the most important part of a business right now, is figuring out a way to take people from transactional revenue space to a recurring revenue space. And that business missed expectations, which I would have thought would have taken the stock down. But what exceeded expectations was the wearables, specifically the Apple Watch and the AirPods, which are now 10% of the business as opposed to 7% of the business.

That's because I buy a new one every week because I lose them. But go ahead. And you're on Silicon Valley wearing those things. But anyways, the wearables division, I think it was up 58%. It's now 10% of the business instead of 7%. And the stock was up. The stock, and I think this is great sweet revenge, the stock was up 4.5% or $45 billion in one day. The value of Dell, and I remember in 2000 at Davos, Michael Dell saying that Apple should be closed down and sold for scrap. And now Apple is adding the market capitalization of Dell in a single day.

But I... Yeah, he will never live down that code. He also said on the stage at All Things Digital many years ago, too. Yeah, but it shocked me that the marketplace responded that way, that wearables seem to be... And then we did a word cloud. This is what dorks do on evenings and weekends. I did a word cloud with one of the analysts here on their earnings call, and they mentioned wearables 14 times versus four times in their last earnings call. And it's clear that wearables for them, you know, this whole notion of an ecosystem is, you know, they're trying to—and I got this wrong.

I thought the Apple Watch had jumped the shark. I just didn't think it made any sense. Well, they are doing other stuff. I mean, they have to move beyond all this, not just wearables, the phone itself. And so you see, you know, a growth in their services business, their credit card is coming.

You know, they're moving into lots of adjacent spaces, which is- Oh, and by the way, who's throwing up on themselves? Kind of the opposite of Apple is Samsung. Samsung's struggling. Yeah. Which is. Well, Apple.

So the growth is. Name one thing and then we have to get to the break. Each company, Amazon, Apple, and then Disney's next week when we talk about it. Yeah. Where is the growth coming from from each of them? One thing you think. I still believe with Apple, it's services.

With Amazon, it's clearly Amazon Media Group. With Disney, it'll be the moment they... No, no, don't say Disney yet. Okay, what was the other one? You said Apple, Amazon. Apple and Amazon.

That's it. Okay, I'm good. I'm done. My work is done here. My work is done here. No, you're not. No, we have wins and fails to go and I'm going to read some advertising

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Would you please go first? Okay, so my win is Restoration Hardware. I think that I was at the Palazzo. I had one of these Palazzo concepts in the meatpacking district. And the CEO there, Gary Friedman, full disclosure, I would call him loosely a friend. Loosely? What's a loose friend to you? I don't even want to know.

We're not close. I don't know. We like each other and we see each other once in a while, but we're not close. But anyways, my point is this guy's a mad genius. We see each other once in a while, but we're not close. But anyways, my point is this guy's a mad genius. And typically in business, the way to add shareholder value is to be the second to do something and kind of copy other people's and innovate. And Restoration Hardware literally does ridiculously crazy things. To build 120,000 square foot Palazzo in the middle of the meatpacking district and then put a restaurant on top that doesn't serve alcohol.

I have been there. I have been to that restaurant. It's quite lovely. They're doing these ridiculous numbers out of this thing. And they literally decide- Yes, I know stock analysts are going crazy. The stock analysts like it. It's nuts.

And some of the things he told me that he was planning to do is trying to create an ecosystem around hospitality and landscaping and design. And none of this makes any sense. None of it makes any sense until they do it, and then it's genius. And they are taking such risks. Well, a lot of tourists have tried the experiential thing. Like, you know, Barney's, remember Barney's had something on the roof and stuff like that. Oh, yeah, but a place for late—

Explain that. Explain that environmental situation. Oh, come on. Okay, Armani Cafe in Raffelon, we're not talking about a place for Upper East Side ladies of lunch to go have brunch on Sunday. What Restoration Hardware is doing is something, it involves yachts, planes, a new concept in hotels, landscaping. You hear this stuff, and as someone who's been on board, you go, that's crazy. And then they do this stuff, and you're right, it's crazy like Picasso genius. And it's inspiring that there's firms out there. It's just a couch. Goodness sake, really crazy.

Oh, they're creating an ecosystem. It's inspiring. I have, let me just say, three restoration hardware pieces. I like them a lot. It's because they're super boring looking. I know they're tasteful because I have no taste. And so I know they look good, but they're wonderful furniture, I have to say. I like them. Oh, but this company, it's inspiring because they've decided we have a vision. Let's be fearless about it. Let's do it. And the crazy stuff occasionally really changes things. And I find what they do just incredibly inspiring. And then look at on the other side, look at Pottery Barn. Pottery Barn used to be the player in home furnishings.

So Restoration Hardware isn't the truck that's run over Pottery Barn. It's the bull that's run it over and then backed up and gored the shit out of it. The board members of William Sonoma Inc., who owns Pottery Barn. I mean, my question to them is, for God's sakes, don't you get tired of someone kicking you in the nuts every day as Restoration Hardware is for the last decade? William, Creighton Merrill. Creighton Merrill. William Sonoma literally needs an activist. They have been the definition of uninspiring for the last decade. They have. I think that's your job, Scott.

I think you should do that. I'm too old. I'm too old for that shit. You're not too old. I can't do that anymore. All right. Anyway, that's my win is restoration hardware. My fail is beyond meat. and this goes to my prediction okay

oh interesting someone one of the grips on stage was asking me about that yesterday at my television appearance on silicon valley i will be winning an emmy go ahead okay 13 billion dollar market cap on quarterly revenues of 65 million so we're talking about a company trading at about 50 times revenues which makes yeah facebook in the heyday look cheap i mean this is this is a company trading at about 50 times revenues, which makes Facebook in the heyday look cheap. I mean, this is a company that might change the world. It's kind of like a Tesla. And that is, will it change the world or is it overvalued and potentially going to go out of business? The answer is yes. Beyond Meat is the new Tesla in my view. It just doesn't make any sense as a shareholder. This goes to my prediction that the stock's going to be cut in half in the next

12 months. And it all goes back to something much deeper, Cara. And that is at Royce Hall at University of California, Los Angeles, one of the greatest, the second greatest public college in America, just behind University of California, Berkeley. But anyways, at Royce Hall, there's two towers and one of them is slightly obtuse or doesn't foot to the other because the architect is prescribed to this theory that effectively when you attempt to do something in total architectural perfection, you're mimicking God, which is blasphemy. And I feel that I know that personally, when I first moved to New York and I didn't have a lot of relationships and I just got divorced and I was kind of feeling down and I don't believe in God, so I didn't have any spiritual reference. I filled that spiritual void in my life with one thing. And you know what that one thing was, Kara?

Drinking. Bacon. And what is Beyond Meat trying to do? They are mimicking God by trying to replicate bacon. And they are about to be punished. I didn't know where that story was going. They are about to be punished. If you want a dog to love you.

Bacon was not where I thought that story was going, but go ahead. Oh, my God. Give your dog a pig's ear. Have you ever given your dog a pig's ear? I have done that. What are you talking about? I've owned dogs my whole life. Oh, my God.

I love pig's ears. Try and get your kids to love you the rest of your life. That takes therapy, tough but gentle, college. Just give the dog a pig's ear, yours for the rest of its life. All right, bacon. Anyways, Beyond Meat. I'm going to circle back to its life. All right, baked. Anyways, Beyond Meat. I'm going to circle back to Beyond Meat. All right, we're going to circle back on that.

Beyond Meat, overvalued as my fail. Bacon, Beyond Meat, stock failure. Okay, I got it. Beyond Meat, wildly overvalued. Cut in half in the next 12 months. You're winning. I know what to get you for Christmas. I know.

My wins and fails. You know, I thought one of the wins was, again, Ronnie Mola. She put in a Freedom of Information Act, which is this fantastic thing journalists can use to get all of ICE's technology contracts. And she published them. Some of the 27 pages of tech companies are working with ICE, including Peter Thiel's company. Palantir has been paid more than $92 million for different things, all sorts of different things. Other partners include Dell, Concur, Microsoft, and dozens more. And so the question is, what's the upshot for these companies? Obviously, contracts. And is there any backlash that a company like Microsoft should worry about? I don't know.

It's an interesting question because, you know, in some cases, it's an issue for a lot of people to be working with. Okay, but let me just ask people, why shouldn't they work with ICE? Well, that's the thing. That's the question. I'm just saying, I like to know, I just want transparency. Who's working for them? When you ask them, they hide it. Like when I asked the AWS, the head of AWS that, he wouldn't say.

Like, just say it if you're working for them. So I like the idea that's a win, that it's transparent. Then we can debate the issue and people who work there can decide. A lot of people who work there don't want to do work for ICE, even if it's just HR software. They just don't want to help them in their thing. I'm just saying. I just like the idea that it's out in the open, transparency. The same thing I want to have happen is with the FTC. And I want to file a Freedom of Information Act. It's like, how did they make that decision with Facebook? I want to know exactly what happened. And they keep it hidden from us.

And so if they're so proud of their decisions, they should tell us how they should show us their homework. I like showing their homework. That's what I like. That's my win is the ability to get more transparency out of these companies. The fail, I think, was, again, Facebook with its mind rating tech was announced two years ago. They have updates and stuff. It's an interface for decoding spoken dialogue from brain signals,

which disturbs me because it's Facebook. It implants sensors on the brain and uses them to record brain activity, something you do not want Facebook to do. And let me put Casey Newton from The Verge pointing out in his newsletter, the interface, this seems like a good time to ask

whether any of this work should, you know, be done in the first place. It's in the nature of these technologies to improve exponentially, often away from public view and to mature before any real public conversation about them can take place. Again, my theme, which is a win and a fail, is we don't have transparency around these things. We're going to have the same terrible situations that happen all the time. Thank you. Well, so there's a lot there. situations that happen all the time. Thank you. Well, so there's a lot there. But my question is,

if you're an American company and you're a public company, which by virtue of that means you've benefited enormously from an infrastructure, an ecosystem, a public education system, financial markets, the armed services who protect our borders, and generally fantastic software weapons, the things we're really good at, then why on earth wouldn't the most noble customer in the world be the U.S. government? And then who are these people to be in a position to decide which government agencies are less or more noble than the others? Isn't the first client any American company should want to work for or be open to working for is a— Well, except maybe not this administration. Like, look, an administration in the town of Sauer—

How do we do that? We're going to stop working for the government every four or eight years based on who we like or don't like? Well, maybe. I don't know. But what would happen if it got more and more like that? But the majority of the people working at ICE were there pre-Trump. I don't understand the whole movement around people somehow shaming companies for working for the U.S. government. The United States government is the most noble entity in the history of mankind. It turned it it's almost cured, in my opinion, that the CDC and research in our system has hopefully arrested HIV and we turn back Hitler. Like what other companies done that? What other organizations done that? So I say work

with the government. We've done a lot of great things, but you know what I mean? I mean, I think it's good to again, transparency is all about. Then you can make a choice. You can decide whether to work for Palantir. You can decide whether to work. I think a lot of this sort of hidden in the shadows, it reminds me of a piece I did back in 2016 when all the tech leaders, they skulked a Trump Tower not saying anything and trying to hide it. I happened to write a story about it, so it got out. But the skulking is what bothers me.

Okay, you want to do this? Tell me what you're doing. You want to do your face thing? Let's debate it publicly. Let's have a lot. The only people that should matter are people who are elected officials. Even if you don't think they're great, they were elected officials. And so what I don't like is these tech companies making decisions behind the scenes for us.

But in any case, we can debate this, Mr. Patriot. So predictions, predictions. I gave you my prediction. Beyond meat is cut in half in the next 12 months. All right. That's a good one. What about impossible foods and stuff like that? Look, I think it's a fascinating category. It's going to wake up Tyson and all these other agri-industrial complex from there, what I'll call plant-based slumber, the same way Tesla has woken up Germans and Americans from their electric slumber. It's going to be good for the planet. We're all going to be fascinated at how not bad fake bacon tastes, although let's be honest, it can't replace the real thing, but it's going to get cut. Fakin'. It's called fakin'.

That's right. Do you mean fakin'? That's right. Fakin'. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Anyway, that's okay. Do you have a prediction? I don right. Faking. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Anyway, that's okay. Do you have a prediction? I don't have predictions. That's your job. I don't have to do that in any way. That's right. I predict that you're probably going to be right about that.

That's what I predict. I appreciate that. We'll talk about Tesla and the others next week. But I'm about to be interviewed by podfather Bill Simmons right after this. And tonight I'm going to be on John Lovett's show, Love It or Leave It. I am somewhat cheating on you, Scott. You were on some of a lot of podcasts lately, I noticed. What else have you been on?

I'm on a ton of podcasts. I'm on all the touchy-feeling ones now because of this book, my book, Algebra of Happiness. Number 13 on Apple, hardcover nonfiction by angry, depressed professors with erectile dysfunction. Oh, and by the way, speaking of rankings, hold on. Hold on. Oh, God. Apple way, speaking of rankings, hold on, hold on. Oh, God. Apple created a new category called News Commentary. And who was number one

for a good 36 hours last week? You and I. That's right. That's right. It's not one dog. It's not one cat. It's a kennel and it's the best kennel

in the world. Okay. That's right. I'm a cat? Number one. Let's retire now. Wait, you're a dog? Am I the cat?

I'm Michael Jordan going to play baseball now. It makes no sense, but I just want to leave on a high note. We were number one. Okay, no, that was great. That was great. We're very popular. We are very popular.

That's so rewarding, isn't it? Thank you and thank you. Yes, I think we should do more, Scott. We need to do more podcasts. Seriously, I'd like to just really give a heartfelt thank you to our dozens and dozens of fans out there that tune in every week. There's so many. What are you talking about? We're number one. Number one. We are number one just for today. But thank you. That was that was wonderful. I

don't like to toot my own horn. Oh, yeah. No more than 11 times a day. Let's talk about your medals from Georgetown. Anyway, I I might say I was just on a television show that will be appearing on HBO and I will win an Emmy and that'll be fantastic I'll bring you to the ceremony I like that Scott it's been great

it has been great we have a lot to talk about next week there's a lot going on I'm going to be coming from Provincetown Massachusetts I'm going to drive down

to Brewste and talk to you from there that's where I'm going with the gays me and the gays alright we'll talk next week I'll see

you soon, Scott. Thanks, Cara. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis and Eric Johnson. Nishat Kerwa is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Anderson, Rebecca Pastro, and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts. If you like this week's episode,

leave us a review. If you have any suggestions about what you want to hear us talk about on a future show, send us an email, pivot at voxmedia.com. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank 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.

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