Pivot - Facebook's oversight board is the "League of Nations", Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky's master class on leadership, and a prediction about Uber's numbers

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about Facebook's new oversight board and whether it will be effective in controlling content on the platform. They discuss layoffs at Airbnb and Uber, as well as Uber's investment in the scooter company, Lime. We take a moment of "Comic Relief" with writer and comedian Sarah Cooper whose videos lip syncing Trump's press conferences have gone viral. Scott predicts that Uber is having fast numbers recovery after Covid-19 declines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I am tired because I have three children at home and dogs and cats and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then we were moving into a new house and the guy who was building some shelters built them so they were all crooked and so i had to deal with him this morning all crooked all crooked crooked shelves meaning that he's not crooked they're actually slanted slanted shelves yeah yeah i just should have called ikea that's all i could have or amazon would have fixed it for me um but yes it's i'm very tired right now i'm super tired i have to have it when you have the kids for a long time in a in a house that hasn't moved into it drives you nuts i'm telling you a minivan straight into the lake no no no no their kids are great it's just it's just a lot the kids are great they're being great

my son cooked for me the other night it's just a lot of people at the house but now i have a new thing i have a second house because i can't sell my house and so i'm working over here and so it's lovely and so i call it r. I call my other house Rome. So it's like a vacation spot for me. Yeah, the other house. White privilege, my other house. I feel triggered. No, no, no.

I can't sell it. I can't sell it because of the market. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. So speaking of privilege and elitist, I think I told you this. One of my sons is really struggling with a lack of socialization and structure and not being in school. And I spoke to a really good friend, someone who is actually my mom's boss. He's like this young superstar and hired my mom as his assistant back in the 80s.

He's like this young superstar and hired my mom as his assistant back in the 80s. And he then kind of, he's a Republican, but he decided that he was passionate about the environment. He started something called Eco America, and he does research to arm environmental agencies with great data on the damage to our environment. He's this incredibly thoughtful, successful, decent man named Bob Perkowitz. And I was catching up with him and I told him that my, you know, one of my sons, like a lot of kids out there is struggling with this. And he said to me something that was so obvious that we've been doing and it's been wonderful. And he said that there are all these studies and he cited a bunch of them that said, when you put your kids in

nature, they're more confident, they're happier. They take their mind off, obviously, their devices, and that nature really is this incredible medicine or treatment or therapy for kids who are struggling. And it just made so much sense. And so every day, I've been forcing my nine-year-old and I have been going into the ocean, and we find a way to get there, and we go in, and it has been just, or not every day, but almost every day, it has just been magical. We live in Florida, so we have access to the ocean. No, the beaches, the beaches are open again, right, the beaches are open. The beaches I go to, I sneak onto a beach, to be quite honest.

Anyway, so, but it's been wonderful and it's just such a simple solution, but it seems so obvious and it's just such a simple solution, but it seems so obvious and it's so effective. But my recommendation to parents who have a kid who's struggling is that just to get them out in nature really does seem to work. Here in the city. Nature. I live in D.C. Nature here in the city, yeah. Right now I live in D.C.

Go to your second house or to the beach. That's our answer. Anyway, you're right, nature. Okay, I will take them to the – There's no nature. Go nature. All right, we'll go to the park? That's our answer. Anyway, you're right. Nature. Okay. I will take them to... Nature. Okay. There's no nature. Go nature. All right. We'll go to the park. Go nature. Park. The park's closed. I will figure something out. I will find a way to get them somehow near a tree. Okay. Speaking of someone who has more problems, Disney earnings report, the first earnings report since Bob Iger stepped down as CEO. Now you know he's sort of back in there working

at it. And it was just, it was devastating. Every single bit of their, I think it's the profits were down 90%. They were sort of killing it everywhere. And now they're being killed. I mean, the parks for one, even though the Shanghai park is opening next week in China, they, which is a big free classroom comes from those parks. They're really moneymakers, you know, obviously film television and films, just filmed entertainment in general is off. Affiliate fees. Every one of their businesses, just similar to Airbnb and Uber, is so exposed in this non-analog life we're living right now. You know, it was just the hottest stock ever just before he left.

So thoughts? Thoughts? I think this is one of those companies, everyone, every money manager or person is trying to figure out what to do with their human capital or the financial capital as either a young person deciding on your career or an older person trying to hold on to your wealth at the expense of younger people. Is the damage here structural or is it cyclical? Does it come back or is there permanent damage? Well, that's what nobody knows.

Is everyone going to go to parks again? When is that going to happen? That's the question. I would argue that this is cyclical because I don't think people are – I think the damage being done to movie theaters is structural and movie theaters never really recover. I think the damage being done to gyms is structural. I don't think you're going to see the same level of gym attendance that had been accelerating for the last

30 years. But if you are going to take these risks, if you are going to be in crowded places, if you are going to take vacations, I think if you have to limit it from five to three to one, at the top of that list is Disney. It's just my kids don't give a shit about the pandemic. We are going to Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland Orlando, and we are going to make lightsabers. I mean, there's just no – at some point that is going to happen. And if you look at also as we move to more content consumption through streaming video services, the early winner in the streaming wars is Disney+.

First off, if you think about what's happening in the streaming wars, the pause button has been pushed and almost all production has been shut down. And so what do you need? Who benefits? The guys with the biggest bank of content. And the biggest bank is kind of Netflix and Prime and also Disney, which quite frankly doesn't need new content because they have such an incredible bank. They're also going to be able to bury a lot of bad news in the expense of pulling all

of their content off of third-party platforms such that they can put it behind a wall and make Disney Plus more differentiated. They can hide that under the cover of the earnings hit caused by COVID. But the parks come back stronger. Disney Plus ends up being one of the big two or big three streaming video services. Even their cruises, right? You think, well, cruises have been hit hard? Oh, cruises.

I forgot cruises. Yeah. Yeah. As long as we keep pumping out old people, I think cruises are going to be fine. I know. They're starting them again. Jesus. Who signs up?

Who says yes? Supposedly, Carnival opened up its reservation system for August and the site was flooded. I don't know who does that. I think Disney is... And if you talk about the stock, the stock's off from 150, a high of 150, back to 100. So it hasn't exactly collapsed. It's back to kind of where it was at 18 or 19 levels. But Disney has all of the assets, all of the leadership, all of the capital. They survived this. There's probably a bunch of players that don't survive,

but they begin to consolidate the market. And instead of going, I don't know, to Six Flags or maybe those, actually I think Cedar. Comcast has Universal, obviously, but then they've got cable. Comcast has their exposure in that parks business. But what Disney's doing is they're making the move, the gangster move, from a reliance on ad-supported television to subscription television, which requires a ton of capital

and leadership through the trough, because you just make less money in the short term. The trough. Right, and Comcast is trying to have it both ways. They're coming out with Peacock with a good, better, best offering where there's free with a shit ton of advertising telling you you need opioid-induced constipation medication, then $5, which gets you less advertising and better content, and then premier content with no advertising at $10 a month. confusing. I think consumers are really lazy, but they don't want to give up their ad revenues, whereas Disney has said, all right, we're going to start making this pivot because we have the capital, the vision, and also we have the content. So I don't see- You're not the word. But I think what people are, is the uncertainty of when. I think they're going to be fine. I think the uncertainty of when to invest. But they have the capital to get through it. Yep. I get that. I get

that. I think Bob Iger is going to be around for a lot longer. He's going to have to, you know, he's going to be poor. I'm leaving. No, to be poor. I'm leaving. No, I'm not. I'm leaving. No, I'm not. Very quickly, also Lime being invested in by Uber. Uber has been in the jump business, which is the bikes, which I love a lot. I use jump bikes a lot and jump scooters, and now they're going to consolidate. Essentially, another consolidation in an industry that was already overinvested in and also overvalued. Although good products, people like to use them.

Yeah, that's really. So I hate ride-hailing. I think it's a menace to society. I think Darwik Kastushahi is seizing the baton as the new lipstick on cancer from Sheryl Sandberg. But I think this is a really smart business move. They are consolidating. They're playing offense. You're going to have, when you hit, I always thought that the opportunity for Uber was to become Expedia before Expedia became Uber, and that Uber has such an amazing brand,

and you tap on that. It's the first thing on my screen, the first thing I tap on in my screen, the first and last thing I tap on when I'm traveling. Yeah. And if you could say, if you tap on it whenever you want to go anywhere. Yeah, that was the idea. That was Dara's idea. He talked about that a couple of years ago. And it might say, okay, you can take a subway and here's your contactless or touchless. Here's the best flight. Here's the best hotel with the QR code if you decide to reserve it.

And also, if you want to get there on scooter, here's the closest scooter. And if you look at this deal, it's basically a creeping takeover where part of the deal dynamics, I mean, there's some interesting thing here. One of the more interesting things is the investment is being done at a valuation that is 80% off of the hot. So that gives you a sense for what's happened in this pandemic and also the opportunity for people with cash to come in and start making investments at 80% off that, granted, maybe the company was never worth that. I always thought there was just too many of these scooters around. But it is a forward-looking investment. And it's also part, one of the key terms, and the key term in this investment, if you will, is that they get to acquire the company at a predetermined price in 2022 or 23. So basically,

this is a creeping takeover such that... Creeping takeover. Is that like a creeping takeover? I like that idea. So actually, I think creeping takeover means when you acquire stock slowly. So that's not the accurate term, but I like it anyways. But anyways, basically, this is a very smart,

I think, kind of thoughtful, strategic business where you're getting off your heels on your toes. This is something Dara's talked about quite a bit, is this idea, strategic business. Yeah, yeah. Getting off your heels, on your toes. This is something Dara's talked about quite a bit, is this idea of transportation anywhere. And you're right. The contact, they were working on the contactless thing as you go on a subway and use your Uber app to pay for the subway. You know, and there were questions of whether private companies should be running things like that. And, you know, everybody should be able to use the subway and not have to have an Uber app doing it. But it's another way for more ridership.

But, you know, these things, again, are going to take a while because people are not going to be riding subways, riding scooters, riding Ubers and stuff like that. So it's a good time to make investments rather than be made investments upon, I guess, right? And also, I love, so this isn't a prediction, but it's just a thesis. One of my gangster colleagues here at NYU is this guy named David Urmeck, and he does the most interesting research.

In addition to being this kind of world-class finance professor, he did this incredible research looking at the tail numbers of jets, and he determined that if a CEO is heading on vacation after the earnings call, it means that he's about to announce good earnings. And this inspired CEOs to start creating third-party LLCs such that you couldn't track their planes anymore because it ended up that people started trading on the flight patterns of CEOs. And when they were headed to Aruba after the earnings call, it meant they were about to announce a good quarter.

So I think the thesis here is that whatever Uber is about to announce, I think they're announcing after the close of business today, is going to be positive. Because I think to announce this acquisition probably means that things aren't as bad as everyone's saying they are, that the ridership has started to stabilize. It's still going to be way down, but it's starting to stabilize and maybe even come back a bit. Because I think that for them to announce the acquisition the day of the earnings reflects a certain level of confidence and mojo. Fair point.

Okay. So we're looking better at Uber, although they're still going to, just like Disney, it's going to take a while to get back. They have a great brand. It'll take a while. As long as they have the money, they'll be able to stick through and come out triumphant at the end, if not battle scarred. Correct?

Yeah. That's it. All right. Big story one. Big story is Facebook has announced who is on its new oversight board. I wrote a column about this in the New York Times. Worries. I wrote not as nice as one as they were expecting.

But this week, Facebook announced there would be a panel of, I think, big names, names, and big and qualified people who would keep the company accountable on content issues. So a content board, essentially. Three members of the board co-wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about some of the picks and how the board would function. There are currently 20 members announced with the board, including a Nobel Prize winner who rose to prominence during Eric Spring, the former prime minister of Denmark, editor at The Guardian,

who published the Edward Stoughton stories. It was quite an impressive group of people. And this oversight board is going to deal with content-only issues. And what's going to happen is cases are going to rise up to it during an appeals process at Facebook. And then Facebook can also bring cases, content-related cases to this board that it thinks it doesn't want to deal with or it doesn't have the answer to this. I wrote a piece saying this is a really, it's impressively impressive, but it's non-controversially non-controversial,

not offensive, essentially. And that it may be that they're adjudicating a system that's broken and therefore giving credence to the system. And my point was this is ungovernable. And there is no way on a case-by-case basis, unless they pick very large cases that sweep across Facebook, that they can actually have an impact. And to me, it felt like the UN, but 100% less effective. Your thoughts? Yeah, I don't even think, I think this, it felt like the UN, but 100% less effective. Your thoughts?

Yeah, I don't even think, I think this isn't even in the UN. It's the League of Nations. Oh, dear. You're going to League of Nations? Yeah. I'm going lawn. I'm going League of Nations. I think the UN, I think getting people together at the UN actually does, keeping them speaking, I think that does serve a purpose. at the UN actually does, keeping them speaking, I think that does serve a purpose. And I think the UN is good value. I think it has served the world well. I'm sure the sigh of relief from all UN officials that the dog thinks there's value there. Anyway, if you look at Facebook, I think what they're continuing to do is trying to outsource responsibility and accountability and say, okay, we're putting together, I mean, they've appointed like the former prime minister of the Netherlands. No, Denmark.

I told you. Denmark. I said that. Denmark. Seems like a big. She's one of the co-chairs. So is a constitutional law professor at Stanford. There's a professor in Columbia.

They're not that famous, but they're very well regarded. This is like. It's a fancy board. It's a fancy board. This is like literally the people who just didn't get invited back to Davos. Like they've been invited just until the last year. Oh, that's not nice. They've been – now they're –

It is. They head to – now they're Pete Rose signing baseball cards at a mall. This is – the Facebook board is – They're not interested in people actually doing anything. They want famous names, and they've also said they're going to open it up so other people can use it such that they aren't held directly accountable when they ignore the recommendations. No, they can't ignore it. No, no, no.

Some of the things they can't ignore, the rulings of the appeals they can't ignore, they can ignore recommendations when they bring things to them. Yeah, but okay. But look what's happened here. Right. Delay and obfuscation. It all comes down to the same thing. They had really thoughtful people in a room serving as fiduciaries for all stakeholders called a board of directors.

And any thoughtful fiduciary appointed to their board of directors, whether it was Ken Chennault, who was a thoughtful, strategic, a guy who is more concerned about the Commonwealth. He's kind of ticked every box in the world in terms of professional success, so he really is focused on doing the right thing. Susan Desmond Hellman, who is an honorable thoughtful woman, anyone who has all of those attributes has one thing in common. They went on the board and then they left. They got off because we can't change this guy. As long as there's a two-class shareholder system you know mark zuckerberg will not his head and not give a shit and not do anything so the thought

that they're going to create some board with the general consulate of australia that they're going to have any impact is ridiculous the board doesn't seem to have any impact on the guy so the notion that this thing this thing is going to the you know, the Joe Namaths of, you know, or Michael Jordan playing baseball of famous names from around the world is going to have any impact on Facebook. Again, it's more delay and obfuscation. It's more pretending to give a good goddamn. As long as you have a 30, what is he, 35, 36-year-old, 34-year-old with two classes of shares. The board couldn't get anything done here, but this oversight content board is going to get something done? I think the interesting issue, and there was an interesting Peter Thiel quote that was surfaced,

if you want to get things done, you keep a board tight, a tight group of people. And if you want to make it ineffective, you make it huge. And this is 40 people. There's 40 people on this thing. And what's going to happen is each of them is going to get, when an appeals rises to the level of them picking, they're going to get to pick among hundreds, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of appeals that have gone, have risen through the system. And presumably they're going to pick things that will affect more than just one case, like an issue of content around one thing. And so they're, they can have broader implications. So that, that's the concept. It's sort of like the Supreme, I call it the Supreme Court of Content. And they're binding.

Their decisions are binding on the ones that they pick that rise to the appeals level. But you're right. This is a business problem that Facebook needs to solve. It's a structural problem in how Facebook is operated. And since what they're doing is they're ruling on a system that is built this way, is built to be ungovernable. And it's sort of like, it's like dealing with the prison system right now. We're all ruling about the prison system.

Well, the prison system is broken. So we're basically ruling on a system that doesn't work. And so, except it works for shareholders. It makes a lot of money. It just doesn't work for all of society. And so that's what's really interesting is putting all these really fancy names next Except it works for shareholders. It makes a lot of money. It just doesn't work for all of society. And so that's what's really interesting is putting all these really fancy names next to a system that doesn't work. Or it works for Facebook and doesn't work for Facebook. But do you think it's a good idea?

Do you think this is worth the lift? I think the board, I think the system, my column said I think the system is ungovernable. And therefore trying to govern it is just icing know icing on a on a cake icing over over things and i think that's the problem i think that's ultimately the problem i think it's i i can see them very high-mindedly it's a very high-minded idea you know what i mean like that this is this is how you can control this monster and i just don't think the monster is going to be controlled. It's the same. I don't have the cynicism you have.

I do think they actually. Who does? Who has the cynicism of the dog? I think they actually think a lot of people there really are very, they're very earnest United Nations types. I don't know how else to. Thoughtful, credible people. Yeah, exactly.

And so one of the things I asked, and they let me actually ask a question in the press conference, I was sort of asking, can I see the list of people who turned down being on the board once you asked them? I wanted to know those people. And the other part- Oh, but you asked a question knowing the answer. They won't tell me. They gave me non-answer. There's no way. People don't want- I know, but I'd like to, if they wanted to be known, would they say why they didn't? I'd love to know why they didn't. And then there were no, like, I wrote this, there's no loudmouths, no cranky people, and most important, no one truly affected by the dangerous side of Facebook. I asked on a press call, for example, why there were no board members like the parents

of the Sandy Hook victims who were terrorized by conspiracy theorist Alec Jones on the platform until he was finally tossed off. That's called passive aggressive behavior, by the way. It was just aggressive aggressive. And they were like, not yet. We'll see. How about people with three-year-olds whose limbs have been amputated because of unfettered measles because they read about anti-vax content on Facebook?

Something like that. But you know, a lot of these people are good at doing these committee things. There's law professors. And you know, all these international organizations, I'm always like, when I did Model UN as a kid, and I was just confused the entire time. Wait, God, I love the way you're thinking. Do you think there's any way they could interview all the women in Mississippi who no longer have access to family planning because Sheryl Sandberg did not put in place the safeguards

such that her platform could be weaponized by the GRU and elect an illegitimate president who is slowly but surely eroding the rights of every woman nationally. I love this line of questioning. I love this line of questioning. You may not come to press conferences. They will keep you on mute. And by the way, they can keep you on mute in the news system. That's really interesting. When you're online, when you're on an online press conference, they can mute you really quickly. Anyway, that's another issue. But I agree with you. I think it's ungovernable and therefore not – it's like having – League of Nations is really mean, Scott. It just is.

It just is. You think that's the low blow? It's one of the low – That sounds fair. Like whenever you say League of Nations, you're like, oh, that. And so I think what I did, I actually compared it to it had no real checks and balances built in from the start and that it's become a free-for-all. And it is what it is because it's built this way. And then I compared it to COVID-19.

Facebook is behaving the way Facebook is behaving because it's built this way. COVID-19 is raging across the planet because it was built this way. This is how it is. And so the problem is much deeper structurally, and that's the issue. Anyway, so League of Nations is the best concept. I wish I had said League of Nations. I'm just thinking game theory here. So if they have said they will not disclose who was approached, that means they won't disclose who wasn't. Oh, so they so asked me? They totally asked me and I said no.

I said no. They begged me to be on that board. They did not. I'll need emails to prove it. It's like when Steven Seagal claimed he worked for the CIA and the CIA will never confirm nor deny anyone being in the CIA. I think they denied it. I think they actually denied it. Oh, did they?

They came out and said. Yeah, no. Is that before he started playing bad concerts in Russia? I don't know. Have you seen this guy? No, no. I don't. I love Steven Seagal movies for years, so I can't.

I love his ex-wife, Kelly LeBrock, Weird Science. Yes. I think she's a nice woman. She strikes me as a nice, thoughtful woman. Anyway, I used to like his movies. I liked his movies. I did. I did. I did. I did. I love Steven Se Anyway, I used to like his movies. I liked his movies. I did. I did.

I did. I love Steven Seagal movies. I know I can't watch them. It's the same thing with Jean-Claude Van Damme, but I'm not going to go into that. Oh, Jean-Claude is gangster. I love Jean-Claude Van Damme. Have you seen, by the way. I'm going to do some Van Damage.

That's what I used to say all the time. Have you seen the commercial where he's doing the splits in between two Volvo semi trucks? I miss that one. It's one of the greatest commercials ever. I will look for it. I just love it. And I love that he's doing the splits in between two Volvo semi-trucks? I miss that. It's one of the greatest commercials ever. I will look for it. And I love that he's very self-advocate. He's like, I've had my share of good times.

I've had my share of bad times. It's like that guy is so clearly like. He's from Belgium. He's from Belgium. Yeah. He's Flemish. Flemish. He speaks Flemish.

Anyway, I love Jean-Claude Martin. I love Jean-Claude Martin. Time Cop. Oh, my God. If you want to do. Let me tell you, listeners. He's awesome. If you want to do yourself a favor, go watch Time Cop.

It's so good. It's so good. It's such a good movie. All his movies are great. Van Damage. Let's do some Van Damage. That's what the name of our new podcast is, is Van Damage. Van Damage?

Yeah, yeah, Van Damage. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break. When we get back, we're going to talk about layoffs at Uber and Airbnb. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night.

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all backed by Constant Contact's expert live customer support. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Welcome back. This week, Airbnb and Uber announced major layoffs at the companies. It's a shrinking share economy.

Earlier this week, Airbnb announced it would lay off about a quarter of its staff with an incredibly large severance package, actually. In an email, CEO Brian Chesky said Airbnb's revenue in 2020 was projected to be half of what it made in 2019. He said Airbnb would streamline its business, pausing efforts in transportation and Airbnb studios, scaling back investments in hotels and luxury. Two days later, Uber announced it would be laying off 14% of its staff. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also will forego his base salary for the rest of the year. Not that it matters.

It's all in stock options, but whatever. I hate when they do that because it's not where the real money is. But nonetheless, he's doing that. So here we are. So I talked to Brian a little bit about it. He's going to hopefully come on Pivot or one of the shows next week to talk about it. What do you think? They just have to do this.

I mean, another exposed company, two more exposed companies. So have you seen these ads? Are you familiar with the company Masterclass, which just makes a bunch of money and is doing really well? And by the way, most of them are just awful. Anna Winter on leadership. Give your team authority. Thanks very much for that. Most of them are just awful. It's just a series of famous people vomiting platitudes with a lot of great production value. But you know who should do a master class? They should absolutely have Brian Chesky do a master class on how to lay off people. The communication, the letter, it was very open and honest and thoughtful. It was exactly how you handle that type of situation. Yep. And generous, very generous. It'd be hard to complain.

That's right. I'm a big believer you can't protect jobs. You can protect people. And I always say on boards, and this sounds harsh, but the sooner we make hard decisions, the more generous we can be with them in terms of severance such that they can get on to the next thing and we can build a great company. Unlike PPP, which is nothing but a hate crime against future generations where you artificially inflate the employment roles of small businesses. But I digress, Kara. I digress. I digress.

Yeah. I thought he handled it beautifully. He did it really, really well. You know, he is one of my favorite CEOs in Silicon Valley, and I think he handled it really well. I think it was 14 weeks for most people across the globe, which is really generous. And then a week for every year you're there. And then they held healthcare, I think, for a year, I think, except for people elsewhere

where they couldn't hold it longer. And he explained why he couldn't hold it longer in certain places across the world. Although most of, I think, their employees are here in this country. So it was, you know, if you had to lose a job, that's the place where you'd want to lose a job at, unfortunately, for people. But it was a really interesting, it was very honest about their problems. I was really, and then Uber, it wasn't quite the same. I don't know actually what the severance there was, but it was, they also had to like contract rather significantly.

So, you know, what do you think? I mean, was that a good thing? They just have to contract rather significantly. So what do you think? I mean, is that a good thing? They just have to. They just have to. They're not going to go public, obviously, Airbnb. Look, I think every company, not only every company. I mean, when I'm advising the startups I work with, it's like, you got to go through, stop the consensual hallucination. Don't act Canadian.

We're Americans. And we make hard decisions. The faster you fire people, the faster you can hire them again. And I know that sounds harsh, but be generous on the severance side. But every company and actually every person needs to go through every expense and decide, how do I either reduce this, eliminate it, or justify it right now? Because there is an opportunity to reshape or get your company to fighting weight. And a lot of companies are doing that right now. Because what happens, you have 11 years of kind of gunk buildup in the gears of too much gasoline being flowed through the pistons or the cylinders here. And it's just created a lot of gunk. There is so much waste

in companies that are a function of an 11-year bull market. Gunk? Is that a technical term? Gunk? Gunk, yeah. Yeah, I'd agree. I'm actually more comfortable. I've been an entrepreneur most of my career. I'm more comfortable in environments like this. I hate paying a 140-year-old $150,000 because they took a Python class at General Assembly and then him quitting four months later to go to Pinterest or something. But anyways, this is an opportunity. This is cloud cover to readjust your burn, both professionally as a company and personally,

to go through and say, what do I really need? What is essential? How do I cut costs? Call your cable company and ask them to reduce your bill. They will. Call your phone company and say, I need you guys to figure out a way to reduce my phone bill, or I'm calling the new T-Mobile Sprint merger.

But on a bigger level, corporations should take this as an opportunity to cut costs. And I think that's what these guys are doing, and I think it makes sense. And by the way, I don't think you're doing anyone. We've taken on this kind of weird socialist mentality that the best CEOs just keep as many employees around as forever. No, it's not. If you're working for Macy's, the best thing, quite frankly, that can happen to you right now is you get a great severance package and you can go somewhere else. If you can find a job somewhere else. Fair enough.

That must be clear. It's not if you can find – they're going to run smack into what to do about gig economy workers when they get back. That is one of the things. And the fact that these gig economy workers need more money and need more health protection. And so I think that's just going to ramble. You mean our essential workers? Uber, for example. Essential is Latin for we're not going to pay you shit.

That's what essential means. Yep, exactly. So I think all these companies that do gig workers, and Airbnb is not one of them is like Uber and the rest are going to face that. That's going to be a big giant cost in their future way ahead. And they're going to have to cope with that. And they've been trying to sort of negate it constantly by lobbying against it, but it's not going away. And especially if the Democrats win, they're going to have to face the fact that the gig economy has to be good for the workers as well as the people who benefit from it. Anyway, we're going to go. That's a it's a very good point. Gunk is a really good. Thank you for creeping merger and gunk today. I'm very excited to be so educated by you.

But I don't know about you, but we could use a little comic relief these days, Scott. I don't know if you've seen Sarah Cooper on Twitter. Who hasn't seen Sarah Cooper? She does video lip syncing to Trump's COVID press conferences and generally having a breakthrough moment as a creator in an entertainer. She's also a former Google employee. I've talked to her on the Recode Decode podcast about this, who left to pursue comedy and writing. We talked on Recode Decode a few years ago. Sarah, welcome to Pivot. Hi, Cara. So great to see you again. Not really seeing you, but...

I know, but I love the idea of like, you sound like you, not like Trump. Now I only see you sounding like Trump. So let's talk a little bit about what's different about being a creator in quarantine and how does this contrast to what you were doing before? And how did you come up with this idea to do it this way? Well, I have to give credit to my 11 year old nephew, Tyler, who introduced me to TikTok about a year ago. So I started playing around with it in quarantine, because we're just bored, like everyone else is just bored. And it's definitely for the Gen Zers, but I'm on there too. And I started noticing that people were lip syncing to Trump about a month ago. And I was like, this is brilliant.

Because like, if you take away the podium and you take away the suit, you take away the people nodding around him and you just have like someone else saying his words, like you realize how ridiculous it is. It's just so much more apparent, you know. So I just loved it. So I started doing it. And then when this press conference happened, where he's talking about injecting Lysol into your bloodstream, I just, you know, I couldn't resist. It was just like comedy gold. It was like the

perfect length. It was the perfect ridiculousness. So I just put it together. And I think one of the things that people really liked is that I did it within an hour of the press conference. And so you were, some people actually wrote to me and said that they saw my version of it before they saw the press conference. And so that's how they were introduced to, uh, Trump saying this, they saw the parody first. Um, so I kind of liked that I beat Trump to the punch there a little bit too, with his own words. Um, so yeah, I just, I just put it out there really quickly. And yeah, people really liked it. Can you talk a little bit about your transition out of the corporate world into comedy and

what inspired you to take what is a pretty courageous leap of faith? One of my favorite comedians in the world has a similar backstory to yours, Michelle Wolfe. She worked in, I think, Mortgage at Bear Stearns and then jumped to comedy. Tell us a little bit about what was going through your head and the leap to comedy, which is a notoriously terrible paying industry versus Google, which is a notoriously fantastic paying industry. Yeah. Everybody thinks you're crazy because if you're not happy at Google, then there has to be something wrong with you is basically what everybody says. I've been trying to do entertainment since forever. I actually went broke and ended up at Google. Google was my plan B, which was the original conversation I had with Kara.

And I wrote 10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, which was just a blog post based on the stupid things that people were doing in meetings in the corporate world. And that went viral and led to a book deal. So it was kind of like I had a bit of a launching pad before. What was your book? 100 Tricks to Appear Smart Meetings. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Excuse me. Yeah. You probably already know all of the tricks. I have two copies. I should know what the name is. In any case. Now I have 200 tricks to appear smart.

Right. So what. Oh, God, Scott, please don't go to comedy. There's two comedians on this podcast. No, there is not. There is one, and she's very funny. Wait, does Scott have a reputation for not knowing who the guests are? I heard that. Yes, that's true.

I had this. Yes, yes. 100%. 100%. 100%. And showing up drunk. I want to know what's different doing this now, because you really got, it went like crazy.

It went everywhere, this Trump thing. And there's been a couple bits like this. Alexis Gay, there's a bunch of people who are starting to really take advantage of the lockdown and doing comedy entertainment now versus before. How is that different from your perspective being a creator? Well, it's kind of like you don't have a choice. And if you want to make comedy, you're going to find a way to make comedy. And so if you're stuck in your living room, you're just going to make something with what you have. And I think the constraint has actually

been pretty cool because people don't expect high production value. They expect you to be inside. In fact, if you shoot something outside, people shame you and they're like, why are you outside without a mask? So I think that that has made people like really creative in terms of, well, you know, I have this idea for the sex in the city sketch and, you know, normally I try to cast it and get costumes and do all this stuff, but actually I'm going to play every single one of the Sex and the City girls, and I'm just going to shoot it in my kitchen. And one of the comedians did that, and it went viral too. So I think people are just getting super creative with it and just lowering their expectations in terms of the production quality. You're not going out to

clubs. And so you're trying to reach your audience in different ways. People are doing Instagram live and they're trying to put comedy on zoom, which is just so awkward. Cause it's kind of like for me, for me, it's like the corporate world, like butting heads with the comedy world. Like I'm in this format. That's like, normally I'd be talking about, you know, trying to scale something and like people are, um, trying to do standup comedy. And I, for me me it feels very awkward but you know I guess it's just like comedy finds a way somehow how do you how do you do it on zoom I've seen a couple of these and and where people are doing laugh tracks like saturday night live and others it's really awkward when there's when that happens when they have people laughing on

zoom for weekend update for example although Kate McKinnon's whole cat thing was wonderful. Like she just had her and the cat. It was great. Yeah, I think that that's the other thing too is that you realize what good writing is because if it's good writing and you're laughing when there's no laugh track and there's no audience,

that means that's really good writing. And I think John Oliver, when me and my husband watch him, we're still laughing out loud even though there's no audience. So I think that's really good writing. But what's the business model? Is it for you? Here we go. The business model. Sorry. A girl's got to eat. So is it the idea that you get a lot of awareness on TikTok or YouTube and that leads to book deals or that leads to,

to speaking engagements or more gigs? Like what more gigs? What is the strategy here behind, I mean, in addition to just making the world a little bit better place to live in, how does this feed into your ability to build a career? Or does it? I mean, for me, I'm already working on my next book, but I have had people write to me and ask about speaking engagements, whether they're Zoom or not. I've had people write to me and ask if they can just send me money through PayPal, which has been very nice. to raise money for for charities and for other things too because once you have millions of people seeing something you can you know comment on that or or um you know what i did was i commented on my video uh to support skylar herbert who's a five-year-old um who lost her life to covet 19 in detroit and her both her parents are first responders and i had a lot of people write to me and say that they donated to her memorial fund because of that video. And so I think that there's, once you have enough eyeballs,

you can pretty much figure out a way to make money in a lot of different ways. And you're going to, it would be weird to do the thing in any other format, the Trump thing in any other format. It wouldn't work. It works on video. It works on, it works in a, in a TikTok kind of zone versus I can't see you doing that and stand up in a club necessarily. Yeah, it's true. It's kind of a, it's kind of a new format, this idea that like you're taking audio and you're sort of reinterpreting it and doing something different with it. Um, Michael Spicer does that too. And he actually, you know, I don't know if you've seen his, but he's the, uh, the PR guy that's kind of telling Trump what to say as he's saying it. Now drink it.

Now take a drink of water. And then Trump takes a drink of water. Yeah. So, yeah, I think. So it's fun to manipulate that. They're really turning out. So last question. Comedy post pandemic.

I mean, there was post 9-11 comedy. You know, things don't completely stop. But how do you see that? And then you're writing about relationships, meaningful relationships is your next book. Yeah. How do you build relationships in a quarantine? If you can answer those two, like what is comedy going forward? Well, comedy going forward, I think that, I think it's going to come back. I don't know

when it's going to come back. And I think that people who are awesome on stage are going to be, I think we're just all dying for that moment where we're back in a comedy club and we're having that, you know, that moment, that connection with an audience. So I think it is going to come back. I don't know how long that's going to take. But I think, you know, when we can't actually be together we have to uh find ways to connect for me it's twitter i really like connecting with people on twitter um and i think that people comedians are finding their platform they're finding the thing that works for them that helps them connect with that audience um the best um and uh you know i think it's also kind of opening a lot of comedians' eyes that like, hey, like Jerry Seinfeld mentioned me in his interview this week with the New York Times. It would have taken me, I don't even know how long to get Jerry Seinfeld's attention.

So like it actually is a great way to get your name out there. Yeah, 100%. Anyway, Sarah, fantastic. I hope you're doing more of them. I said you should do it every day. I will. That blew up on Twitter. It was crazy.

People really like you doing Trump through you. It's a perfect marriage. The only thing is people are saying now that when they hear him, they see me. So I don't really like that too much. But that's a fair point. Anyway, Sarah Cooper, thank you so much. Thank you, Sarah. Congratulations.

What is your Twitter handle so people can watch this? It's Sarah CPR. It's a short name of Cooper. Sarah CPR. Okay. Sarah CPR. Is that TikTok, same thing, and Instagram? Yeah. All right. It's Sarah CPR. She's very funny. If you have not seen it, I can't imagine you haven't. Please do. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on Pivot. Thank you, Cara. All right, Scott. One more break. We'll be back for predictions. One more break. We'll be back for predictions. 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. 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 Thank you. that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Okay, Scott, we're back. You have to predict something. You must predict something. Well, this is more about psychology than it is any underlying fundamentals. But I think that you're going to see Uber stock way up after hours because I don't think you announce an acquisition like this

unless you're feeling your mojo. Ah, interesting. So I think they're going to – I think, Dara, after hours, we record on Thursday, we broadcast our release on Friday. But I think – and it's so dangerous to make these predictions, but I think that basically Uber is going to report that things have stabilized and have started to return. The light at the end of the tunnel has been illuminated for ride hailing. Lyft's numbers were stronger than people expected.

The other one is, did you see Peloton's numbers? No, tell me. Oh, my God. Huge, right? Huge, huge, huge, huge. The company reported numbers, they were up, I think they were up 60% to about 530 million. They are now getting over $100 million for recurring revenue. I mean, everything I teach in my online class about how to make a trillion-dollar value company, recurring revenue, vertical. They not only manufacture, they have their own stores, they do their own installation, creating a community. I mean, everything, they are literally firing on all cylinders. Scott is the only person who actually uses Peloton, which is Kara Swisher. Yeah. It is really interesting what they're doing because initially, of course, they had in-studio things with people there biking with the instructors, which they make, and they do live classes.

And then they were doing the live classes with the instructor alone. And they have these very, if you've been to their studios, they're very kind of a plug-and-play kind of thing. And then someone got COVID-19 in one of their, they have two studios, I think in New York now, one in London. And then now they're doing stuff from instructors at home. You know, they're just, they're so quick, you know, where people do live classes there. And so they're keeping this, a lot of people who do it love the live classes. I don't, I like the taped classes. And they've got to talk about a treasure trove of stuff that they've had from the past. Like you were talking about this archives. It's a very similar kind of thing that I do the same class over and over again, for example. And then not just that.

They have meditation. They've got running. They've got an app you can take with you when you run, which is really helpful. You're right. They've sort of got it coming and going in a really smart way. Well, they've got over a million paid subscribers. They have a churn rate every month. If you think of this as a SaaS company of about 0.46%, which I think is a churn rate each year of about 9% or 10%. So their logo or membership renewal is like 90%, which is near Netflix or Prime levels. Yeah, why would I leave? It's not

that expensive. And this is all, their revenues are up 60 odd percent in the face of them closing all of their stores. They do, in fact, have stores. So this company is just firing on all cylinders. All right. Listen to me. Scott, Scott Galley, did you get it out of your system? Sorry, sorry. Have you gotten it out of your system?

Tonight, the last nail in the coffin of ad-supported media, Vice Television. Yes, the speaking pitch. No mercy, no malice. With a guest appearance from the jungle cat. Yes, apparently the most popular among the Vice people, correct? Okay, so you heard this. Of course, you bring it up. The suits advice, review the show.

I'm like, you know, we don't like this. We don't like this. We really like the banter between you and Kara. I'm like, I can't quit her. You can't. I can't quit her. You cannot. I just tell you.

We have a thing. We have a thing. Vice likes you. We have a thing. We have a thing. Vice likes you. We have a thing. No, they like us. They like you and I together, which is just a combination like peanut butter and peanut butter. Anyway.

There you go. Watch Scott Thursday nights at 10 o'clock. Vice.com. Go on to Vice.com. Please watch it. After you watch Anand's show. Anand's show. Anyway, don't forget if there's a story in the news you're curious about and want to hear our opinion on,

email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Scott, please 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 download and subscribe. We will see you next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

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