Pivot - Facebook's privacy fakeout, WeWork's reckless IPO, and Reagan the welfare queen

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

Kara and Scott discuss Facebook's new focus on privacy; what comes after the Web 3.0 era; and what Oprah has to say about Scott's new book. Enjoy more of Kara and Scott on Recode Decode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or in your favorite podcast app. 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 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. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. and I'm hangry. I haven't had breakfast or lunch. So this is going to go either really well or really poorly. Keep your hangry. This isn't a Snickers commercial. So I just want you to know I'm investing in the relationship.

I drink every night. And last night I decided to have bourbon instead of clear alcohol because my voice, I've noticed the next day, sounds deeper and sexier. And I want this show to be successful. So I am abusing different substances because I want you to make more money. Your dysfunctions have no interest to me, just so you know. Oh, are you kidding? These are the grooves and the cool things in the persona that is me.

These are the kind of the fun, interesting quirks. All right. And also, don't make fun of my hobbies. But I'm not inviting you to my ax throwing next week. I'm going ax throwing in Brooklyn next week. Okay. I won't make any lesbian jokes. I will, I will resist the temptation. We're good with the axes. We lesbians have a good, we have a good handle on the ax. You know, log rolling. What else? Listen to me. I'm sorry. Go ahead. We need to talk about actual things rather than your sad, dysfunctional life. Let's roll.

Let's light this candle. So I think we have to start again with Facebook. We talk about Facebook a lot, but they had F8 this week, and Mark took the stage. He said the word private or privacy at least 412 times. He tried to make a joke that nobody laughed at about privacy. He should just not do jokes. That's my feeling. And then there comes the news that these FTC things, which I wrote about

the fine, you and I, and we talked about the fine being bigger. I wrote about that in the Times. Thank you for the idea. I quoted you in it. Life goals. You know what my other biggest life goal happened this week? Oprah called my new book, The Algebra of Happiness, a wondrously weird collection of short stories.

I am wondrously weird, Kara. Wow, I don't know if that's a compliment from Oprah. Oh, I'll take it. I'll so take it. I'm sorry. Here's the deal. So anyway, so we talked about

there was a story talking about there might be a privacy czar at Facebook essentially or there are groups outside. So what do you think about this? I have myself. I will volunteer like it's the Hunger Games. I will do that job if they want.

I will take that job. I am putting myself in. I'm doing like the, you know, the Mockingjay thing. I'm going to put my own fingers up. Well, no, as I refer to them, the Enhanced Interrogation Network has found privacy. As I refer to them, the Enhanced Interrogation Network has found privacy. And I think if they're really serious about privacy, they should hire a very accomplished lawyer as chief legal counsel who violated the privacy of millions of Americans based on their ethnicity. Oh, wait.

Maybe not. Maybe not. Wait. Hold on. Okay. What do you think the idea that they have these privacy czars within Facebook to – it's basically an ombudsman, right? Is that the concept? Yeah. And they paid someone a billion dollars to deflect and lie to us. It's basically an ombudsman, right? Is that the concept? Yeah, and they paid someone a billion dollars to deflect and lie to us.

Her name's Sheryl Sandberg. This is more illusionist tricks slash bullshit slash lipstick on cancer slash the mother of all beards. The encryption slash privacy thing is a head fake. Hey, look over here. This is lipstick on cancer. Where they're really headed is they've decided they want to create

the largest secure encrypted network of 2.6 billion people. And where they're headed with is transactions because what's going on is, you know, the marketing, classic marketing funnel, right? There's sort of awareness.

Explain it to me. Explain it to those of us who don't think about classic marketing funnels, but go ahead. Okay, so suppose, so the metaphor for all of marketing, and it's a metaphor that's worth probably $10 or $20 trillion, is how do you get people to be aware of your product, then consider buying it, and then think, okay, I'm going to buy it.

That's intention. And then action, and then purchase, and then loyalty. And supposedly the funnel narrows as you go down. Fewer and fewer people. Everybody knows Mercedes. Some people want to buy it, but few people actually end up in the showroom. And classic marketers have spent a ton of time,

and we at business school spent a ton of time trying to figure out a way to create a funnel and then move people down it. And the reality is the funnel has actually shifted to more of a wine glass, because if you're at Audi.com and you start outfitting or configuring your A6, technology can figure that out and you start getting served ads from Cadillac and Lexus. So actually the funnel looks more like a wine glass now

because now once we get to consideration and attention, other marketers, technology-driven marketers start stepping in. But anyways, the key is who can actually own the funnel. So if you look at the top, YouTube and Facebook are sort of the gangsters of awareness. They do a great job, pretty inexpensively. You move down to intention, and who's the Jesus Christ of intention? Oh, my gosh, Google, right? They figure out what you want.

You tell them what you want, and then it starts nudging you one way or the other. And then the Dalai Lama of kind of the bottom of the funnel is Amazon because the most expensive shelf space in the world is where you check out because you have to spend time there. Your kid starts grabbing chocolate. It's impulse purchases. So that's the most expensive, valuable shelf space in the world. And Amazon has created a checkout shelf space that is the size of Texas. And as a result, Amazon Media Group is the fastest growing media property in the world. So the key is who can own the entire funnel. And if you look at last week's earnings, it looks as if all of a sudden Amazon might have the entire funnel.

And that is they have top of the funnel with the marvelous Mrs. Mizell and Amazon's Echo. They're now the second largest search engine in the world and the largest search engine when people are looking for an actual product. More people do product searches now on Amazon than on Google. And again, they have that checkout bottom of the funnel. So they get on the whole funnel. And if they don't have to violate your privacy in doing so by sucking data and getting out of the dirty advertising, they use the data, but they don't misuse the data, correct? That would be the goal. Well, it's not that they're more moral. It's just that you don't tell people, you don't go on Facebook and talk, you don't go on Amazon and talk about your diabetes, whereas you do on Facebook. And then Facebook has individuals

that don't care about your privacy. I mean, Amazon could technically get really, could be scary because they now have a listening device in your house. But to their credit so far, it really doesn't look like they've abused that data or abused that kind of interface. But now, circling back to Facebook, they could give, I mean, let's be honest, I'm really concerned about privacy said no one ever at Facebook Inc. or no one with any power. Or that's a great way to basically signal, hey, fire me eventually, to start actually genuinely giving a shit about other people's privacy. But what Facebook's trying to do is, everyone thinks Zuckerberg is going after Snap.

No, he's not. He's going after WeChat. WeChat is probably the most impressive platform in the world right now. That is exactly right. We've talked about this, that he wants to be more like that. It's an easier business, too, and it gets him in less trouble. So the second brightest mind in business, Mark Zuckerberg, has decided, okay, I need to go down the funnel and I'm going to create the largest encrypted network, which is perfect for payments. And I'm going to become the Conde Nast turned into Walmart because Hermes and Christian Louboutin will sell and distribute through Instagram

because Instagram looks awesome. Amazon does not. Hermes would not be caught dead on Amazon, but they might sell through Instagram stories if all of a sudden they had a commerce and a secure payment platform across everyone in the world. The wine glass. There you go. It's a wine glass. Let me just say that should be your next book,

The Wine Glass. I don't drink wine. Speaking of drinking games, there's a drinking game every time you say gangster on our show. Gangster! No. You got to come up with a new one.

Yeah. No, that's an awesome word. That's an interesting thing. It's an interesting question of whether he can do this when he can move to price. It really is fundamentally changing everything

Facebook has been into something else. Do you buy it? Do you think these people have any teeth? No, I think it'll be unsuccessful. I don't think that's why people use Facebook.

I don't think they think of it that way. I think they've tried a number of times to do this kind of things, the messaging. They haven't been successful on the messaging. I mean, it's big. It's obviously big. And WhatsApp's important.

But I think they've never really put – their mentality is still in advertising direct, advertising community, that kind of stuff. So I think it's going to be hard to shift focus like this. It's going to be very difficult, especially with the executives they have there. Did you see their earnings? Did you see Facebook's earnings? They absolutely blew them away. They do.

And Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories now, which in my view, Instagram Stories and Amazon Media Group are now the two most powerful marketing platforms in the world. And Instagram Stories, I don't know if it was year on year or quarter on quarter, grew from 2 million advertisers to 3 million. And you're right. It's well done. It's well done. I was just on Instagram. I never go on Instagram, but I was on there and I was like, God, these advertisements are really good. These advertisements, they have very good, very well done. They do an amazing job. And by the way, everybody blew away their earnings. I almost bought four things that I didn't want. Everyone blew away their earnings, literally everyone, Twitter, Snap, Amazon, Facebook, except who missed? Google.

Google. You know, we hate it when monopolies miss their earnings, said the market, and took Google down 7%. What do you think is going on? What do you think is going on? It's really interesting. I wonder if—so everyone immediately said, well, Amazon Media Group is starting to eat into actual Google's business. I wonder if it's also Instagram Stories. But it's really interesting.

For the first time, what looked to be the most powerful marketing platform in the world is actually starting to take body blows or the growth is slowing down. I mean most people would pray for Google's problems, but it's the first time they've missed, I think, ever on their projections. And it was because, it looks like because, A, Amazon Media Group and Facebook, Instagram stories are starting to get into it. Well, they were blaming the dollar. The dollar was their thing. The dollar? What, the currency problem? Currency problem, yeah. By the way, quick fact, Google does about six billion pounds in business in the United Kingdom. And you know how much they pay in taxes.

Or do you know what the profit they reported is? I saw that story. Zero. They reported a profit of 50,000 pounds. They're like, tell them we have a profit of 50,000. We can't say negative. Yeah, that tech stuff is going to get into it. There was a good story in the New York Times about nobody pays taxes.

Amazon, I think, was at the top of that list. Well, I'm going to go off script here, but I've been asked by The Economist, and I like to say that because it makes me sound smart. The Economist has asked me to write an article script here, but I've been asked by The Economist, and I like to say that because it makes me sound smart. The Economist has asked me to write an article on capitalism, so I looked up what is capitalism. Do you have to have a byline? They don't let you have bylines in The Economist, right? They're willing to give me a byline, Cara. Granted, I think I'm going to be literally buried somewhere on the deepest, darkest web of The Economist. It's a wonderful publication that I don't read. I buy it so I can walk around airports and people

go, oh, he's so smart. But I don't actually read it either. I can't read it anymore, but that's another issue. But I've been thinking a lot about capitalism and basically capitalism is supposed to be that the means of production are owned by the private sector and also the spoils are divvied up by the private sector. The more you believe in capitalism, the more you think kind of government should just get out of everyone's knitting. And to a certain extent, we all have government intervention and child labor laws are a form of socialism, arguably.

But anyways, I'm convinced that mortgage tax deduction, capital gains, and social security, which I think all of these things are nothing but a transfer of wealth from young middle-class, old rich people. I mean, we like to think of them as, oh, we're helping the poor not be, or the old not be poor, or buying the American dream dream or whatever but you know what else is an incredible tax on

young people is complexity because complexity favors the people with money and lawyers and tax accounts so the more complex the tax code gets yeah the better it is for general electric google apple and the more fucked middle america middle class, mid-sized companies are. We talked about this issue that people in the middle are the ones getting through. So that will make it very interesting for this election if Democrats can get that through, that the rich are getting richer and you're not, no matter who they are, the tech companies. But it is amazing how few taxes these companies pay. It's just, you know, of course, why would't you? Why would you not try not to pay taxes?

I think, I don't agree with Donald Trump on that, but that's what people will do. They're trying to avoid and do all they can. If it's complex and they have lawyers, they certainly will do that. So Reagan had, speaking of taxes, Reagan had this fairly racist- Ronald Reagan?

Ronald Reagan. Remember him? Good hair? Yes, I do. Good hair, dementia, good hair. Whatever. Most overrated president in history. Started this long spiral down of fucking the middle class.

But he had good hair, so let's call him the Gipper. Anyway, so this guy basically had this kind of racist and disparaging imagery that he painted of, I think he called them welfare coins. And it was clearly racist, and he basically said there's this whole group of people out there who are milking the government and taking your tax dollars and gaming the government. You know who the mother of all welfare queens is, Kara? Ronald Reagan. The mother of all welfare queens on a cosmic level is Jeff Bezos. And hear my logic. I'm going to let you go on just for a little bit.

Hold on. Then we're going to talk about my stories. Go ahead. I'm sorry. It's all about me today. Go ahead. Tell me about that. I'm intrigued. I cannot look away from this possible traffic accident. Go ahead. Someone said that listening to our podcast is like watching NASCAR and that at any point something comes out of my mouth and there could be a fire crash. Yeah, I'm waiting. This one I'm going to go with. I'm watching you spin out of control, but go right ahead. Keep going. So here it is. The wealthiest man in the world has all his wealth tied up in his stock, and he never sells his stock, so he never triggers a capital gain or taxes.

So how does he fund his lifestyle? Simple. He borrows against his stock for somewhere between 1.5% and 2%. I can borrow against my stock about 2.9%. That means he can borrow from Jamie Dimon for 1 and a half to 2%, right? So he hardly, he never triggers a capital gain. In exchange for that, there are literally hundreds of billions, well, not hundreds, okay, tens of billions of government subsidies going to Amazon in the form of, hey, bring our HQ here to here or put at your AWS new data center here. He gets effectively 17%

of all those transfers of government to Amazon because he owns 17% of the stock. So I think if you add up the direct transfers from government, if you add up the fact that he doesn't pay really any taxes because he never triggers a capital gain, what we have is the mother of all welfare coins. And that is if you have a $20 trillion economy and call it a $5 trillion tax base and money going in, and we're all paying money into that big $5 trillion tax base, right? You pay taxes. I pay taxes. You don't just pay a lot of taxes. You've been

on this tax thing. You must've just paid a lot of taxes or something. I did. I know I did. I was pretty pissed. Well, we all write checks. Almost everybody puts money into that pot. And then money goes out, $500 or $700 billion to our military or whatever, a trillion dollars to social security. And you know where money also goes out? It also goes out to Jeff Bezos. The net effect of our economy on the world's wealthiest man is that he is the mother of all welfare coins. All right.

I see your point. I'm not sure I like your imagery, but okay. All right. Let's see how that goes. Hey, by the way, for the first time, I got forwarded several people forwarded your AI article to me and they actually said it was thoughtful. So I almost read it. Yes. Can you tell me why people seem to be marginally impressed with what you wrote?

Because I'm a brilliant, Scott. Yes. That's really pretty much it. Hashtag brilliant. It was an essay written. I've been doing this crazy PowerPoint that I give a lot when people ask me to speak around what I think the next big trends are. And a decade ago, Walt Mossberg and I wrote an essay saying smartphones would be,

this is 2007 or 2009, so somewhere a long time ago. I think it was 2008, maybe. We were talking about how smartphones were going to be the next big thing where all the new companies were going. And this was pre-Uber, pre-all these companies. And so we declared Web 3.0 was about smartphones and mobile phones and cell phones and this whole.

And it was really prescient. If you go back and if you actually read it in our original essay, it's quite prescient. We really do call it. And then so then I decided to call it again. And so I've been putting together this. I just I change it all the time, this PowerPoint about what I I think the big trends are, and among them, AI. And my point is, like, there's not one trend now. There's six, and they're all intersecting.

And they include AI, robotics and automation, changes in self-driving and transportation, end of privacy, continuous partial attention, continuous partial hacking, and political and social unrest. And so I brought it all together in a 2000 word thesis about where the next era, not Web 3.0, but Web X.0 is coming from. And so I was like, this is why it's going to be super complex because there's so many, it's not one thing.

I think the cell phone or the iPhone really changed everything. There's not one thing now, there's 10. And that's why it's going to be hard. And a lot of them require very sophisticated regulatory schemes. And so that was what my essay was about. And my whole point was that we've got to do something about it because these are not as easy. These are not, what's coming next is really massive changes. We're at the cusp of another massive change. That was my- Okay, so a couple of questions. Do you think AI is underhyped, overhyped? And when you say massive changes, can you put some more flesh on the bones? Underhyped.

What do you mean by that? Underhyped. I think AI is underhyped. I think the changes that are going to be wrought through AI as it moves everywhere. It's obviously been here. This is not something new. But as you move into more sophisticated and, you know, there's general AI and specific AI. There's bad AI and good AI.

There's all kinds of different things. But I think the companies that really get their arms around the uses of AI, there's all kinds of different things. But I think that the companies that really get their arms around the uses of AI are the ones that are going to dominate. And so I think it's underhyped. I think it's just the way the internet was underhyped. I think AI is underhyped. So, okay, so as far as I can tell,

the only way that AI impacts my life is if I'm watching season two, episode three of Transparent, Amazon has figured out that I might like episode four and they start counting it down and they play it without my permission. Other than that, how does AI impact Scott Galloway's life? Oh, everything. Lots of things. Everything. It will do everything.

It will anticipate everything. And it will be able, you know, just even just as you move to self-driving, for example, you need a massive optimization system to understand how cars move around. And it's such a complex or where they're going to move or what they're going to do. massive optimization system to understand how cars move around. And it's such a complex or where they're going to move or what they're going to do. And you just need, you need so much data

to understand this. And I think the issues I was talking about is that what data goes in here? Where do you get the data? Is it dirty data? Is it, you know, it's just, it's just the amount of data that's going to be able to be part of the system is really quite breathtaking. And so the question is, who can figure this out for all kinds of things? And not just anticipatory things like that, which is part of it, but it's chatbots. It's everything.

It's every single thing. And so it's going to be like the internet. I guess I don't know how to explain it. It sounds like someone hyping the blockchain right now. It's going to be everything. I'm not hyping the blockchain. The blockchain is going to be important. I didn't talk about the blockchain in the essay.

I don't quite understand it yet. So I just want to, just for the purposes of discussion here, autonomous driving I think is a little bit – or what do you think – I'll put the argument forward. That everyone was talking about AI is Latin for firing cashiers and Amazon opens their ghost stores and uses AI so you can walk out and not have a cashier. And I think most retailers have decided it's cheaper to hire someone at 10 bucks an hour than to implement AI. Right now. Right now. Well, okay. Autonomous driving. I think autonomous driving is an incredibly overhyped technology, even though it was mentioned several dozen times in Uber and Lyft. It's going to be massive. You would be the person who would be sitting there in your cart with the horse saying, these cars, I don't get them. Who am I going to speak to if I don't have an Uber driver?

Who the hell is going to talk to me? You're not going to have an Uber driver eventually. You aren't. Not you. Maybe not you. You'll probably be dead from all your- So then what's next when you say Web X.0? What is next?

Oh, look at this. Beyond Meat just went public, right? This is interesting. Beyond Meat? I didn't even write about this, but I was, Beyond Meat just was going public today or something like that. This is the plant-based meat or whatever. And, and you know there's a lot of players in this include the meat the meat people were involved in beyond meat they sold to do their own version of it

um and obviously there's some possible foods and all kinds of things i think that's a really interesting area i think you know it's a lot about execution and marketing and getting people to change habits um but i think that's super interesting. Ag tech. Ag tech, I think, is interesting. See, by the way, I hate that name. It's terrible branding. I do not want to go beyond meat. If we get to the meat station, I'm getting off and staying there. I could eat meat three times a day. By the way, best marketing campaign ever, Sybil Shepard, a vegetarian, James Garner, who had had a triple bypass, becoming the spokesperson for the National Pork Association in the 80s, and the best tagline ever, the other white meat.

Oh, I love that. I love that. That's how I describe in business school. They all have us come pitch our classes to the snotty little kids who are paying a lot of money. And I just get up there and I say, my name is Scott Galloway. My class is brand strategy, better known as the other white meat. The milk one.

You'd have to like the milk one better. The milk. The milk one was good. What was that one? With the milk mustache. Oh, meat. The milk one. You'd have to like the milk one better. The milk. The milk one was good. What was that one? Was it? With the milk mustache. Oh, yeah. Got milk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was cute, too. That was brilliant. No, that was cute. That was brilliant. The meat one. There's never a good meat strategy. Anyway, I think those are interesting.

I think, so I was talking about trends that are coming up and that we, this is a big, is a big, lots of big important changes coming. That was what it was about. Essentially, that's what it was about. Well, congratulations on that. Thank you. It was a relaunch of Recode and Vox Together. It was all kinds of things.

So I decided to pontificate for a while. On the Recode site rather than the New York Times site, I'm going back on tomorrow to pontificate on the New York Times site. Recode, New York Times, Tomato Tomato. Multi-brand strategy. Yeah. That's what I am. Multi-brand strategy.

Multi-prong. Hold on. Speaking of multi-prong, I just have a bone to pick. You's what I am, multi-brand strategy. Multi-prong. Hold on. Speaking of multi-prong, I just have a bone to pick. You and I both used to be on CNBC every week. Yeah. They've literally stopped calling me. Well, I was on this morning. I have been verboten from CNBC.

So, by the way, CNBC, in my view now, is catheter television. Literally look at the ads. We're done. Okay, restless leg syndrome, opioid-induced constipation. Anyway, ad break. We're going to take a quick break. If you're watching CNBC, it means one thing. It means your life fucking sucks. Literally get your

life alert and watch another financial news station. Hush, hush, Scott. Now, we're going to take a quick break. 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. 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.

Scott, have you calmed down? I'm not even going to start. No, I have calmed down, by the way. I think that was it. Lins and fails. Hold on. I think that. Go ahead. wins and fails. Hold on. I think that—

Go ahead. Don't rush me. Love me. Don't judge me. Anyways. Always judge you. Listen, so that was a great ad, but you know what would be a better ad is if we showed an old man named Chuck spending time with his grandkids and tried to defraud seniors

into believing that, in fact, we had a trading system and we could run an ad called Trade Like Chuck. Or is that what it's called? Oh, wait, no, that's CNBC defrauding seniors with their commercials. Trade Like Chuck, everybody. In any case, Scott, we're going wins and fails. Right now you're a fail, but let me just start by saying. Angry and insecure. I see that.

Disney, Avengers, opening weekend. I saw it. It was huge. Fantastic movie. Is it good? Fantastic. End game? Great.

I'm going to see it tomorrow with my boys. Perfect. Perfection as a movie, exactly what I wanted. Really? Very long. Perfection.

Amazing. Even though someone stole the bag that was sitting next to my chair this weekend when I was watching it. You're shitting me.

No kidding. I had a sheet in it. I bought a bottom sheet. It was gone. Gone, gone, gone. And kidding. I had a sheet in it. I bought a bottom sheet. It was gone. Gone, gone, gone. And some Mother's Day cards. I'm sorry to hear that. It's fine.

The movie was fantastic. It was fantastic. So what do you think about that? Disney seems, someone was just telling me, I'm going down to Los Angeles tonight, but someone was just telling me, you know, Disney owns everything now,

it feels like. They're sort of on all cylinders. They've got that. They've got all kinds of things going on. What do you think? Look, Disney is, you know, that's kind of revenge of the old school. I think Walmart and Disney are kind of the two, I would argue the only two legacy firms, if you will, out there that are landing counter punches on these tech monopolies. And I think Bob Iger is one of the few people who can pull it off that has the assets and the credibility.

So, I'm rooting for Disney. I think Disney is amazing is one of the few people who can pull it off that has the assets and the credibility. So I'm rooting for Disney. I think Disney is amazing. What do you think? I think they're great. I think he's – I have a lot of admiration for him. And I think the movie was so well done and so beautifully marketed and just everything was flawless. It was flawless. I was thinking, what a flawless everything that they did.

And, you know, the numbers of people at the movie theater was astonishing. Like I could – I think I had to go like at a weird time. It was really amazing. And my fail this week is this Amazon ring hiring, doing crime reporting from the photos from the... Yeah, what was that? Same one? It's a ring, which I have in my house, actually. Before they got bought by Amazon, and I'm not sure what to do with them right now. They, you know, they take pictures of things.

They have like a blog that I actually look at because it's like hard not to look, but people doing awful things like taking packages. It's mostly people taking packages, Amazon packages, which is kind of funny, ironic. And now they're hiring a crime reporter to make stories out of some of these things that are on the ring that get photographed. So it's instead of just like, you know those cop shows where it's from the thing that's on the cop's shoulder? Now this is what's coming out of your ring, I guess.

I'm not really clear. I think it's just, it's going to go wrong. It's going to go wrong. Scott, that's my fail. What about you? Okay, so a lot of wins here. Okay. Well, first off, look,

the earnings from every company but Google were just unbelievable. So a ton of wins in the earnings season. Also, and I'm shocked we haven't talked about this, I thought Biden's announcement was actually pretty well done. And I think it's another interesting lesson in marketing, choosing the medium.

So live events are a medium, but they're riskier. Kamala Harris's live event was a huge win. There was an electricity there. She just nailed it. And she's attractive and looks good in direct sunlight. And so does Cory Booker, and he chose a live event, but it didn't work because people didn't show up and it kind of fell flat. Yeah, that's a problem. It is.

But Senator Biden was smart. He said, OK, I'm 76. Under natural light, I look like an underwater plant. I look like I just shouldn't be alive. And by the way, I'm pretty sure that's a hate crime. He's doing pretty good. Second one today. But he did a good job.

Trump's attacking him? Come on. He's like he couldn't do better. He did a really good. Well, you know, the thing is I'm convinced Joe Biden has a vision for the country, but the real question is, does he have night vision? Okay. Bada-boom!

Oh, that's right. All right, so you like that. But I got to tell you, your friend Beto's fading fast. He was higher. I heard that they had, like, things they couldn't fill up. My new hero's in the race, though. He announced this morning. My hero announced—

Michael Bennett. Senator Michael Bennett. Two objectives. To restore income mobility to the middle class and also to restore integrity to our government. This guy, I am such a huge fan of this guy. Senator Michael Bennett, fully recovered from prostate surgery or prostate cancer surgery. He said he's become more deliberate. This guy is thoughtful, not afraid to stand up to the far left. I just, I'm going all in on this guy. I love Beto. I'll have him as a lover. I'll have

him as a lover, but I am marrying Senator Bennett. You know, it's interesting. Pete Buttigieg is on the cover of Time Magazine with his partner, Chasen, who I love on Twitter. He's really wonderful. That was interesting. I still am a Kamala fan, I've got to say. I'm no pizza guy who shows up to a party 30 minutes early with ice, right? He's just like, he's the guy that says, I'm here to help. I'm here to help. They're all doing pretty good. They're all doing pretty good. All the front ones are all doing

pretty good in a lot of ways. I think they are. They're all doing good. They're good choices. There's a lot of good choices, let me just say. I won't feel bad about almost any of them, I have to say. I hope so. I hope so. We'll see. I mean, Trump really aimed at Biden, though.

Boy, did he go after him. And then, of course, Bill Barr. Yeah, but all that does is legitimize Biden. That's a gift. Yes, that's what it does. That's a slow fastball. Is there such a thing as a slow fastball? Anyways, that's a gift to Biden because what he does is legitimizes him and cements him as the frontrunner.

All of Trump's advisors who he doesn't listen to are like, oh, God, don't say – ignore Biden. Yeah, they did that thing. Jared doesn't like it. Jared. Yeah, Jared. You know, he was a student of mine. Speaking of advisors, I think Bill Barr was a fail this week. Who was it?

Bill Barr. Oh, my God. On a cosmic level. I think he's going to. I think he's going to. Oh, my God. How can I – Stephen Moore just went down.

How can I have a lead? Whether you think of—whatever you think of as politics. This guy's led an honorable life of public service, an impressive guy. Sort of. How can I really fuck up my reputation just before I die? I mean, literally, it's like, how can I exit on—how can I leave the room and not only say I'm a whore, but I'm a cheap whore? Oh, wait. Okay. I mean, this guy literally— Scott, you need to get some food in you. All right. I'm moving into predictions. but I'm a cheap whore. Oh, wait. Okay. I mean, this guy literally.

Scott, you need to get some food in you. All right. I'm moving into predictions. We got to wrap up. I'm having Tristan Harris soon to talk on my podcast. Tristan. Oh, my God. That guy's a gangster.

He's twice. That's twice. Big brain and very handsome. His thing is humans, the dehumanizing of humans, whatever. Yeah, how we're basically all biomechanically addicting. He's a thoughtful guy. I know, so I'm going to talk to him.

He's very good. I talked to him in this very room I'm in two years ago. Tristan! Tristan! All right. Prediction, please. Okay, so a few things.

Okay. I think Spotify is getting into acquisition territory. There's no one company. There's no monopoly like every other medium in music. There's Apple with a shitty service growing faster than Spotify because they're a monopoly and they own the rails. Amazon in music, another part of the oligopoly crowd.

And then there's Spotify, which has the best service out there, mostly because they're willing to lose money. And Spotify went out at $150. It's now, I think, about $130 or $130. I think they're getting to acquisition prices. And also the other company I think that could potentially— Being bought, you mean? Yeah, being bought, being acquired.

And then the other company that I think there's a chance might get acquired before they go out is Slack. Slack. People have tried. People have tried. Microsoft. Is that right? Google has tried. Yes. Microsoft made a really big push to buy that company. A push. Slack. And then— People have tried. People have tried. Is that right? Google has tried. Yes.

Microsoft made a really big push to buy that. A push. Yeah. And then—and by far—and I've been—I don't know if I've been wrong or right on this. The most overvalued private company in the world filed for their IPO. WeWork. 100 percent, Kara. WeWork.

Let's take Regis— It's basically Regis. It's basically taking a floor in a building, you know, Regis temporary office, and put in a cool bar and some craft beer and pretend we're an internet company. And it's just, it's supposedly going out at a valuation or trying to go out at a valuation of $45 billion. Yeah. I mean, this literally is the pets.com of this era. If this thing gets out at a $45 billion valuation. Good one.

Okay. And what do you think is going to happen to the stock? Prediction. Well, I don't know if it's going to get out. I don't know what price it gets out at. But if you do the math here, it looks as if the floors that we work, if it gets out of this $45 billion valuation, the floors that weWork leases are technically more valuable than the entire building that leases them that floor. This thing just makes no sense. I mean, at least it makes Lyft look like a great business. It's incredible that you want to talk about entering

into consensual hallucination with the marketplace. By the way, their founder, Adam Newman, I mean, it's this thing, this valuation is burgeoning on fraudulent, but I'm coming back in my next life as this guy. Have you met this guy? I do know him. Oh my God. He's so thoughtful and nice and he looks like that Argentinian polo player, Nacho,

that everybody loves. I'm like, Jesus Christ. I was asked to come interview him at the J.P. Morgan. You look great, but your business is nearly fraudulent. It doesn't matter. Let me just break it down. Okay. Whether he's dreamy and worth $10 billion or dreamy and worth a billion,

that's still fucking dreamy, right? That's capital D dreamy. In his next life, I'm coming back to that guy. All right. On that note, Nacho. But his company is a joke. That is ridiculous. Ridiculous.

Ridonkulous. Ridonkulous. All right then, Scott. It's time to go. What else do you have on tap for this week? Well, you always ask me that. I'm going to see Endgame tomorrow night because you love it, and I'm taking my kids to IPIC.

I got the kids this weekend. I'm excited about that. I get to be solo dad this weekend. I'm kind of excited about that. Bond with my 8-year-old who is not. I'm having trouble connecting with my 8-year-old who is not, I'm having trouble connecting with my eight-year-old. How do I connect with him?

Just don't worry about it. Don't worry about it? Don't worry about it. That's what I say. That's been my fathering strategy so far. I am going to be on Bill Maher tomorrow night.

I'm going to be on Bill Maher and then I'm going to Seattle. You're on Bill Maher? Yeah. Fucking hell. That's it. I'm going on strike. I am going on strike.

You're on Bill Maher? And then I'm going to go to the SALT conference In Las Vegas Where that's a Scaramucci situation I've had it I've literally had it

I'm assuming You're up next week Stephanie Ruhl Is hosting my book Signing at Stern That's the only thing I have that's even In the same realm as that

Say hi She's fantastic She's wonderful When is your book party? I didn't get invited To your book party When is your book party? Well you know what?

We have a list, and it's 400 people, and you came in at 403. So you just missed the cut. I'm writing Stephanie Will right now. You just missed the cut. I wouldn't have come anyway. Anyway, Scott. God, that pisses me off. I would be so awesome on Bill Maher.

Decline. Is it because I'm unattractive? Is he luxist? Is he luxist? I have no idea. I don't know what I'm talking Bill Maher. Is it because I'm unattractive? Is he luxist? Is he luxist? I have no idea. I don't know what I'm talking about. Whatever. In any case, Rebecca Sinanis produces this show.

Nishat Kerwa is executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week with more of a breakdown of all things tech and business. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, rate, and review Pivot on Apple Podcasts. Support for this podcast comes from Stripe. Stripe is a payments and billing platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like Uber, BMW, and DoorDash.

Stripe has helped countless startups and established companies alike reach their growth targets, make progress on their missions, and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a suite of specialized features and tools to fast-track growth, like Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to handle subscription-based charges, invoicing, and all recurring revenue management needs. You can learn how Stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at Stripe.com. That's Stripe.com to learn more. Stripe. Make progress.

Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things. And it's never too late to reinvent yourself. The all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation.