Pivot - Facebook's Russia problem (pt.2), Zoom's soaring market cap, and a prediction on Shopify

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about Russian election interference found on Facebook and Twitter. They also discuss Zoom quadrupling revenue in the past year and what the company should do with their new found p...ower. We get a listener mail question from Australia about a new law that would require Facebook and Google to share ad revenue with content publishers. In predictions, Scott foresees big spending from Shopify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:15 ConstantContact.ca Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Calloway. Again, Scott, we meet. This is threeivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Again, Scott, we meet. This is three times this week. There you go. What do you think about this? There you go.
Starting point is 00:01:31 Are you tired? I know we did our last Pivot School was yesterday, and I thought it was really strong. It was fantastic. I hated yesterday's session less than I've hated any session in a long time. Really? That's such a nice way to talk about our relationship. What did you like about it? Why don't you be, stay in the positivity zone, Scott.
Starting point is 00:01:48 I think President Frederick, is that his last name? Frederick, yes. I thought he was inspiring. You know, a guy who lost his dad at three from, I believe they were from Trinidad Tobago, who went on to be a surgeon
Starting point is 00:02:03 and then be the president of what is probably the top-ranked historically black college in the world. He's just an inspiration, and he just struck me as incredibly, like, just the kind of guy you want shepherding an important organization. And that made me feel nice. I thought the superintendent from LA Unified School District. Yeah. It just, it makes, made me feel better about America. That thoughtful, smart, generous people are running important institutions. We hear every day about how, I don't know, just screwed up everything is.
Starting point is 00:02:39 Yeah. In related news, Trump says to vote twice. Yeah. Yeah. And bags of soup for your family. Just to be sure. Bags of soup. Just to be sure.
Starting point is 00:02:47 Bags of soup. Did you hear that one? Oh, God. Bags of soup. I haven't heard bags of soup. He thinks some protesters throw cans of soup. And so he says people bring bags of soup and then they say they're for your family, for your family. He repeated it.
Starting point is 00:03:00 It was like a demented rant about bags of soup. The soup thing. Honestly. It's cuddly. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you're right. You look at today's news, you know, the whole Kenosha thing yesterday, and you look at like they're fighting over whether they're going to fund cities that have anarchist tendencies,
Starting point is 00:03:15 you know, the threat to do that and all this other, you know, fighting. And then Cuomo stupidly responds that he needs an army. Like the whole thing is like, please stop. And then you have a guy like Frederick and Austin Buechner who is, you know, justifiably concerned about the fate of these kids who are not getting education, K through 12, and trying to come up with all kinds of creative ways, you know. And of course, it's Los Angeles. So they have, you know, access to some celebrities to do reading and things like that. And it's, it was like, at least they're
Starting point is 00:03:49 trying something, right? They're, they're trying fresh things to try to get people some decent education, at least. And speaking of upcoming disturbing events, the debates. It's going to be like a squabble breaks out in the dining hall of El Rancho Relaxo Senior Active Living Community. It's just going to be so strange and weird. I feel like someone's going to take a swing at someone. I think it's going to be Biden who takes the swing. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:04:20 I'm not looking forward to the debate. I just think it's going to be a – Yeah, well, maybe Biden. I think Biden's just got to really go for broke. You know what I mean? You are a lying piece of shit, essentially. Like, I don't know what else he can do. He can't be...
Starting point is 00:04:35 Or he can be affable and nice. Like, aren't you all... I think the way to go is he sits there and he goes, listen, this guy, this guy, aren't you tired of this guy? Like, don't you want to stop the chaos? Aren't we all exhausted? I will bring you calm. Like, do you remember, do you ever see the movie Primary Colors?
Starting point is 00:04:53 Remember the candidate who did that? I did, John Golda. Yeah, and he was winning, it turned out. And Larry Hagman's character was that senator or governor from Florida, and he suddenly surged because he just said, I just want to calm everybody down. Everybody needs to calm down. And he started surging. And I think that's kind of the way to go.
Starting point is 00:05:13 First of all, watch out for all these October surprises. There's a dozen of them that are on the list, including the AG from Kentucky. Say, if they decide that they're not going to prosecute the police or Breonna Taylor, they could do a bunch of things. Like there's a whole bunch of things that people are floating or there's lots, there's lots of things that would get people overwhelmed is if you just start to say, let's, let's stop the chaos. If I were, if I were my advice to the Biden team, don't debate. I would just say, look, first off, I think this could be a disaster for Joe Biden. I'm very pro-Joe, but I'm worried.
Starting point is 00:05:57 Everyone's worried. I think we can't, I think the excuse is a valid one. And it's to say, look, you can't debate somebody who is not inhibited or in any way constrained by this thing called the truth. Trump could literally show up and say, I found out last night from the CIA that if Biden is elected, Russia plans to come into Ukraine. I mean, he could just say anything. Yeah. And with the quote-unquote full power of the presidency. And he could just make up so many outrageous lies about the state of the world and that he has access to certain information. And I'm here to announce that X, Y, and Z. Like dark shadows.
Starting point is 00:06:38 I just don't think they should debate. I think I say, look, we can't show up with one hand tied behind our back called our commitment to the truth and integrity. We're just not going to do it. Yeah, I don't know if he could do that. Do you think people would put up with the kind of things that Republicans will say? He's too scared to come out of the basement, hiding Biden. Yeah, that's a fair point. I've got to be honest.
Starting point is 00:07:01 I'm nervous about this. People give Trump, you know, they give him a—I think he's actually very, I don't know what the term is, good on his feet. If you think of what's thrown at him and his ability just to look serious and honest and not be embarrassed, I just think he's very good on his feet. I don't think Joe is. Yeah. Yes. So anyways, I'm worried about it. But anyways, bigger, bigger, bigger issues.
Starting point is 00:07:23 Well, it will be one ugly, exhausting country, if that's something you think. There's all kinds of things happening. Let's get on to big stories. Facebook and Twitter both say they found interference from the same Russian group that meddled with the 2016 election. Big surprise. Why wouldn't you try again if it worked the first time? Both companies say that disinformation from fake accounts have been proliferated on social media platforms. The Kremlin-backed group called the Internet Agency has been using fake accounts to push
Starting point is 00:07:53 voters away from the Democratic Biden-Harris ticket. U.S. intelligence agencies have been warning Russian election interference for months, although the Trump administration tried to block that information from coming out and are trying to block telling Congress about anything. But unlike the last election, this time the Kremlin has hired U.S. writers, young U.S. writers to proliferate the content. And then Facebook decided the week before the election to limit all kinds of information and political information, political ads. I don't know how much that will help. What do you think of the situation? I think that Kellyanne Conway should announce she's starting a SPAC and has acquired the internet agency and is taking it public. I think we're literally kind of one batshit crazy move away from someone saying the internet agency isn't a covert
Starting point is 00:08:42 actor on behalf of governments looking to hurt us. They're not our adversaries. They're simply a communications firm. Yes, exactly. And that they have some of the biggest clients in the world. I mean, Palantir is about two steps away from the internet agency. Palantir is saying, you want to talk about a room full of, I don't know, contradictions.
Starting point is 00:09:03 So, Kara, have you seen the information that Palantir filed, sent to their investors regarding their direct listing? No, I have not yet. Oh, my God. Who am I kidding? You have a life. Only those of us who don't have a life. So, basically, they start out by saying, our government agencies have let us down, and most will collapse, and others will be challenged. So, imagine, it's tantamount to Accenture in their IPO filing announcing that their growth strategy was to bank on just how stupid corporate America and their clients are. They go on to say that the non-Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley firm
Starting point is 00:09:35 and that Silicon Valley has taken a wrong term and is molesting the data of consumers. And it's like, well, isn't your founder the first money into Facebook? Yeah. Irony is not dead. Irony, the whole thing is a miracle of hypocrisy. And you know what's most interesting, I find, is that all of a sudden, all of a sudden, Peter Thiel, who spoke at the RNC convention last time, has decided about the time it looked like Biden was more likely to take the White House has all of a sudden decided to distance himself from Trump. Because here's the thing about being an oligarch where you leverage your proximity to power for corrupt means. You can't get too
Starting point is 00:10:15 close because if that person that you're leveraging that proximity to gets kicked out of office, things could get very ugly for you very fast. And then the guy, Alex Karp, has all of a sudden decided he's a socialist. It's just this whole thing reads... They're awful. Among all the awful people in Silicon Valley, I find them to be the most awful, I would have to say. It's weird. We're libertarian, but not if we can surveil your data. We hate big government unless they're buying our products. And by the way, this company spent a one and a quarter billion, made $750 million, lost $500 million or lost like $0.60 on the dollar. The U.S. government last year, granted, spent a trillion more than it took in, but that's about $0.30 on the dollar. It feels to me like Uncle Sam should be advising Palantir on how to run a business. Yeah. It's just, you read this thing, it's like the Rudy Giuliani of tech companies.
Starting point is 00:11:01 Nothing they say, nothing they say makes any sense. Just wait 60 seconds and they'll contradict what they said before. And their strategy is just to muddy the waters and make you feel bad. And you're like, okay, I just give up. It's Palantir. It's technology. It's like a crazy guy, Peter Thiel. Let's buy it. You know what we need to do? What do we need to do? We need to WeWork this puppy. We need to-work this puppy, Scott. Let's do it. They'll kill us. This group will kill us, of course, but that's okay. I can't figure this shit out. The three of their clients, 30% of the data, they were funded by the Central Intelligence Agency so they could turn around and say that government is a bunch of idiots. They spent $500
Starting point is 00:11:37 million on marketing. They overpay themselves like there's no tomorrow but claim they're socialists. I don't know where to start on this. Let's make this one of our narratives. I feel like we should. Let's make the investors aware of the situation. Okay. At the same time, they clearly have a couple of very interesting products that help stream together and glean insights from unstructured data sets. I do like the fact that they're calling out these companies for their bullshit around, we're going to do a virtual walkout because we don't like the fact that we're working for the government. Well, the US government, in my view, regardless of if we have a bad king or not, is the most noble client in the world. And if you want to have a virtual walkout,
Starting point is 00:12:17 if you want to be Cesar Chavez, if Cesar Chavez were a total bitch, then fine. I like the fact that Palantir is saying, look, the government is a great client and we're a total bitch, then fine. I like the fact that Palantir is saying, look, the government is a great client and we're proud to be a part of it, but not brought to you by a bunch of libertarians. I just, what is going on here? I don't know. You're very exercised. By the way, Cesar Chavez was never a bitch.
Starting point is 00:12:39 Let's just stop. No, that's what I'm saying. Cesar Chavez was a hero. Cesar Chavez was like, people who actually wanted to make change, they actually said, I'm going to put my physical person, my financial future, I'm going to walk across this bridge and potentially get my head bashed in, not do a virtual walkout from when I'm coding up Facebook. Here's what I'm going to ask you. What are we going to do about this? We're going to rework this thing. I'm telling you, we need to call attention. We should do dramatic readings over the next few weeks of the Palantir. When are they going? Oh, that'd be hilarious. I don't know. The thing is, the thing is about Palantir that freaks me out is because it's a tech company. Yeah. Because, and by the way, they use, I love, I've did the word cloud. They use the term Peter Thiel or Alex Karp 131 times, which is second only to
Starting point is 00:13:20 the number of times a CEO is mentioned in S1. You guessed it, the 2019, Jesus Christ of our generation, Adam Neumann. Most CEOs are mentioned an average of 30 times in their S1 filings. These guys, I just, but the problem is Palantir could go out and it could go out and get a big bump because everyone's so horny for anything that's tech right now. Yes, that's true.
Starting point is 00:13:38 That is true. That is true. WeWork, WeWork was literally like, it screamed like it was the most fraudulent non-fraud company in the world. It was flying to Bombardier. And what is this one then? What is this one?
Starting point is 00:13:50 It was flying to Bombardier Global 5000s into a mountain every week. It was losing $100 million a week such that they could rent desks. It just made, I mean, that really was like crazy town. This is a company with interesting products. Yeah. But it's been around a while and it can't figure out a way to make money. So I don't, I'm just, this thing kind of, it's haunting me, Kara. It's haunting me.
Starting point is 00:14:11 It's haunting the dog. And let's put that to use. Let's use your weird obsession with things and your despair, your overwhelming despair to something good. Let's do that. Let's work that. But we got off topic on Facebook and Twitter. My embers of depression burn bright, Kara. They burn bright. I say we're going to use them. We're got off topic on Facebook and Twitter. My embers of depression burn bright, Cara. They burn bright.
Starting point is 00:14:25 I say we're going to use them. We're going to do a dramatic reading next. They're literally my fuel. Unfortunately, they're noxious old economy fuels, and they have huge emissions and externalities on the dog. It's not easy being depressed and angry all the time. I'm enjoying our little therapy session, but I'd like to get back to Facebook. It's not easy being depressed and angry. We had new political ads in the week before the election.
Starting point is 00:14:43 Not that it matters, because the content is what matters. As I noted, the freelance writers were working for the Russians. What do you think of this effort to hire U.S. people to do this? It's just content. Listen, everyone who's listening right now, Facebook banning political ads will not matter. It's the content that matters. It does not matter. These ads don't matter.
Starting point is 00:15:04 They don't matter. It's the content that matters. It does not matter. These ads don't matter. They don't matter. It's the content. So what do we, Facebook, you made a big deal about that yesterday, about them giving away money. Well, this is, I mean, talk about again,
Starting point is 00:15:15 the mother of all inconsistencies. Mark Zuckerberg has given $300 million away to, to try and stave off election interference, which is like Jeffrey Epstein donating money for young gymnast programs. I don't know where I got that. I'm going to let that sit there. I'm going to just leave it right there. Go ahead. Keep going. Here's what it is. Okay. I'm going to give one third of 1% of my wealth to try and pretend that the company responsible for the other 99.7 isn't one of the worst things to ever happen to America such that I can make more and more. It's just such a ridiculous, it's such a lie.
Starting point is 00:15:58 It's such a lie. It's like a non-geared-up artist must seriously be like tearing all that wonderful hair out when he sees Mark Zuckerberg give $300 million to try and fight election interference. It's tantamount to being a woman who is so grossly negligent, your platform is weaponized by someone who becomes an illegitimate president who goes on to put people on the Supreme Court that consistently erode a woman's rights, and then you write a book about gender balance. It is so hypocritical. It is so obnoxious and gross, but there it is, $300 million to stop election interference. And it won't matter because, listen, the Homeland Security Department blocked warnings of Russian campaign against Biden. They declined to publish memos about it, and so he put people in power that are now, to get them to unblock it is how you would do this. So we know what's happening. I mean, it's just giving money now is really.
Starting point is 00:16:49 It's simple. It's simple. And I do think there's a learning here. Thanks, Mark. Adam Brandenberger, who is one of the top game theorists in the world and a colleague at NYU Stern. Game theory, when you're trying to incentivize behavior or disincentivize behavior, you need to make the possibility times the fine greater than the likely upside. And that's where we have screwed up as a citizenry and as a public. Because if you're Robin Hood and you sell your deal flow and you don't disclose it to investors and you're selling it to people who will pay more for your deal flow because your investors are young people who don't know what they're doing and you don't disclose that to the sec which you were supposed to disclose the sec said that's it we're angry
Starting point is 00:17:35 we're going to find you 10 million dollars but when you're raising money in an 11 billion dollar market capitalization and you don't want to do anything including comply with the law that gets in the way of your growth that is a a calculation that says, okay, we should absolutely continue to break the law. And when you continue to pervert our democracy and the potential fine is just not there, it's $5 billion fine from the FTC on a $700 billion company. The game theory, the game theorist at the government has totally forgotten his abacus. And all we are doing is incenting. We're saying to these companies, please break the law. It's the smart business strategy. So what do you do is simple. You say
Starting point is 00:18:15 for every instance of a bad act, we executed the Rosenbergs. We took a mother and a father with young children. We lined them up against the wall. We put hoods on their fucking faces and we shot them in the head when they conspired with a foreign enemy. And here, we take 0.3, 0.01% now of someone who is effectively complicit and conspiring with a foreign nation. It's very simple. Make the fine such that the calculus and the game theory goes, okay, shit just got real. Yep, and we got to pay. We got to stop.
Starting point is 00:18:50 We got to figure out how to withstand the shit. Why would this administration do that? They're doing the exact opposite. They're pushing Russia. So, you know, it's all perfect for them. It really is. It's so, the astonishing inability to block the Russians is treasonous at this point. It really is.
Starting point is 00:19:09 It's really quite, it's an amazing thing that this government doesn't want to stop the Russians and they aren't passing the correct election security. And that anybody advantages themselves. Let's call, Facebook, don't ban political ads. Ban political content that you are aware of from Russia. You know what I mean? Ban that, and that might be something you could do. And ban it now, actually.
Starting point is 00:19:31 Ban it yesterday. I don't know. Until a lot of them does a perp walk, this isn't going to stop. They've overrun Washington. They've overrun. They have more money than any fine we can come up with. Somebody has to do a perp walk here. All right.
Starting point is 00:19:44 Probably will be us in that way. Anyway, we Somebody has to do a perp walk here. All right. Probably will be us in that way. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break. I like that we're going all like. I will definitely do that deal for you with Netflix. All right. Oh yeah. We would be good. Carrie and Megan just did a deal with Netflix. You saw that? Yes. Yeah, I did. We'll talk about that. We're leaving the world to who gives a fuck. Move to LA, buy a Porsche, join a Soho house next. We don't care.
Starting point is 00:20:12 And we'll get invited to everything. We don't care. We will get invited to everything. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to talk about Zoom's soaring market cap and a listener question from Australia. listener question from Australia. Fox Creative.
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Starting point is 00:23:17 Scott, what? That makes sense. What? That makes sense. Please explain it for the people. That makes sense. What? That makes sense. Please explain it for the people.
Starting point is 00:23:24 Look, I generally believe, going back to Robin Hood, that it is young men who are very prone to those sensors being tickled around gambling. And when you start to think in a market like this, it just goes up. You actually begin to believe that you're good at this. I fall victim to this. goes up, you actually begin to believe that you're good at this. I fall victim to this. Whenever I buy a stock and it goes up, I think, wow, I immediately credit my own intellect and my own skills with the stocks that go up, and then I blame the market when they go down.
Starting point is 00:23:55 And when your stocks start doing well, you start thinking, well, maybe what's this thing called margin? And what's this thing called options? And with this stimulus, which is trillions that has come into people's hands. And by the way, the savings rate has never been higher, which means that we didn't need to put the stimulus in the hands of 90% of people who haven't lost their jobs. Anyways, anyways, so what do they do?
Starting point is 00:24:14 They lever it up on Robinhood. And all of a sudden there's this marginal or incremental flow into the big name stocks that everyone says is the future. People think are gonna come out of this pandemic even stronger in the right. And we're seeing a total, a total disarticulation from valuations and numbers. And as I keep saying, my colleague, Aswath Damodaran, calls them story stocks. And Zoom, it's hard. If you're an individual and you have a thousand. Story stocks. I like that. If you have a thousand, two thousand, five thousand bucks,
Starting point is 00:24:44 you're going to buy a stock, you're like, well, okay, what's the thing in my life I need to be mindful of? Okay, a global pandemic. What is the one company that I can relate to that I know is doing well in a pandemic? Zoom. I mean, it's literally ground zero,
Starting point is 00:24:57 but the numbers here have gone so batshit crazy. And the thing is, you don't want to bet against it because it can just skyrocket. But here's what is likely happening at Zoom and it's likely happening at Shopify. And that is every investment bank that calls Zoom right now and says, I have an idea, gets their call return. Because if you are sitting on currency, it's inflated, you go shopping. You go shopping. You've got to build it in, build the value in. If you're AOL, if you're Steve Case,
Starting point is 00:25:31 and you're like, I'm sitting on a pile of shit right now at AOL, or let me put it this way, the world is moving away from me, but people seem to think my firm is worth $150 billion, I'll go buy this boring shit called book publishing and cable companies that actually spend real cash and have steel in the ground, if you will. I'll go buy this boring shit called book publishing and cable companies that actually spend real cash.
Starting point is 00:25:45 Yeah. You know, steel in the ground, if you will. Yeah. If you're Shopify or Zoom, I can't imagine you are. What do they buy? What do they buy? That's a really interesting one. I'll put it back to you. What will make them?
Starting point is 00:25:58 What will make them? I don't know. Roku? I don't know. What? What? I think it would be very interesting or, okay, Zoom. How do they get into the home? I mean, I'm almost saying everyone.
Starting point is 00:26:10 Roku, right? Roku is the one you always. Yeah, but that's entertainment. This is about communication. This is about, this is an interesting one. What if they bought a small telco? What if they bought Sprint? I mean, what if they bought, this is a $120 billion company. What if they bought- Explain Sprint to me, because you wouldn't be, explain that to me. Yeah, I'm just saying, okay, so you have, how do they buy it? If I were them, I'd buy a telco. And I don't know what their next biggest market is outside the US, but they're about communication,
Starting point is 00:26:43 right? So it's not entertainment. I don't see it. I don't see how they buy, you know, I was thinking, well, Spotify, I'm like, well, that doesn't really make sense. They're in the world of connecting people via new means, new modes of communication. And so I'm trying to think like, who's the number three player? Like how much is T-Mobile? Again, T-Mobile merges Sprint, which is SoftBank. It's probably too complicated. But I wonder if Zoom has, I don't know what zoom's presence like in europe but they would make a big splash if they started acquiring some of these small and then do what with a telco do provide all communication services basically take on skype webex try and be the next major communications platform globally i mean i'm literally'm literally, this is me throwing cards all over. What about Slack?
Starting point is 00:27:26 That is really interesting, Kara. How do you like that? We should have an investment bank. A revolutionary investment bank. The problem is, you know, it's like diet soda and diet soda doesn't make... Ah, yes.
Starting point is 00:27:41 It's like soda and soda doesn't make a gin and soda or a vodka soda. It just makes more mixer. They need to go buy what I would call, I don't want to call it an old economy company, but a company that has EBITDA. Because at some point the music is going to stop here. When does the music stop? When do you see a year from now? A year from now we have a vaccine.
Starting point is 00:28:01 We have president whoever. What happens to Zoom? People don't use it as much. Now, there is these trends towards working from home, but I think people want out and go back to the office. I think people are dying to get out of this Zoom situation. Well, you were going back, but we're not going back to those we went to. The place of my first job in Morgan Stanley, 1251 Avenue in the Americas, they track how many people in the building. On an average day, there was 8,500 people in the building. Now there's 500. So maybe it goes back to 4,000,
Starting point is 00:28:29 maybe 6,000. It's not going back to 8,500. No, I know, but I don't think we'll be in a constant Zoom. Yeah, in a Zoom. Yeah, I agree. But who knows about the markets? About the time everyone is convinced the markets are about to crash, it goes up another 30% for two years. As it got to 97, everyone thought 97 was going to be the big crash. Yeah. But these guys with their currency, I mean, you absolutely, you want to get out there and be acquiring stuff. I mean, even, that's what you're seeing with these SPACs. This feels very, I mean, here's the thing, Kara.
Starting point is 00:28:57 I don't know if you thought this way. I'm starting a SPAC with Lindsay Lohan. I just heard of, since I wrote about SPACs last week and everyone was like, what do you write about SPACs? I've heard about a dozen more crazy freaking SPACs.
Starting point is 00:29:11 People are like, oh, I'm doing a SPAC. I'm like, what? Like everyone has one. I've been contacted by three people. A media one, right? A media type. I'm getting called by education SPACs,
Starting point is 00:29:19 people who want to go to education. I don't know if you saw, but Bill Ackman. So they need to hire you for the expertise, right? That's what a lot of people I know are getting hired for the expertise to help them figure out what to buy. All they want is credibility badges that signal we know what we're doing. Or in my case, a crazy badge.
Starting point is 00:29:34 I don't know, but I'm getting calls from folks saying, hey, we want to talk to you about the SPAC we're doing. I'm like, boss, that ship has sailed. SPACs typically underperform the market over the long term, but this year they're overperforming. I mean, I don't know if you felt this way in 99, but I thought after I got run over by a truck and then it backed up again and ran me over again in 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst, I thought, all I need is one more bubble and I'll be so much smarter this time. And we're here again. And so the question is, the question all of us, I think a lot of us are asking is okay what do you do does that mean you sell everything because if you'd sold everything in March you would have missed 40 to 60 percent yeah any stock so it's not and all of the all of the literature says you don't ever
Starting point is 00:30:16 really want to be fully out of the market that there's a small number of days that if you miss him you miss all the returns you know what I do what do you do I do nothing nothing yeah yeah I just sit here and I hope to God that it won't be a mess when I'm 85 or whatever. Yeah, that's... I just don't, I look away. I have developed a distaste of money. Like I make a good living,
Starting point is 00:30:36 but I literally don't pay any attention to it. I used to get so ensconced and I can't really buy and sell stocks. So I just don't worry about it. I just stay out of it. Yeah. I think about people, people who are wealthy have tell this bullshit lie that they don't think about money anymore and they're not motivated by money. Oh, I think about money. I'm anxious about it every day. I don't mean I don't think about it. I don't think about the stock market. I can't, I can't. No, no, I'm not saying you'll never time it. I'll never time
Starting point is 00:31:04 it right. Huge source of anxiety for me. I know, you like them stocks. I think about it all the time. I never care about stocks. They always end up going up. And if they don't, I'll wait tables. I don't know. I'll figure something out. I have made some new investments though. I'm investing in private companies now because I just can't. Yeah, yeah. I'm investing in health tech and ed tech. Good, smart. I will announce on the program when I've actually won those investments of closes. I want to discover my holdings. I understand you're going to be teaching for the LA Unified School System. You and I are going to do a class on podcasting.
Starting point is 00:31:33 Oh, all right. Yes, we are. Yes, that was yesterday. We promised the superintendent of Los Angeles. Scott is an alum of the Los Angeles Unified School District. We're going to teach a class on podcasting. University High School, for those of you who didn't tune into Pivot School, University High School, my high school that I went to,
Starting point is 00:31:49 now has the largest proportion of children who are homeless of any public school in Los Angeles. That affected you greatly. I saw your face. You were like, wow, we got to do something. Don't you feel as if, I feel as if a lot of the kids, when I think about, I got a good education at LA Unified, not a great one. It was good, not great, but it got me into UCLA, which was amazing.
Starting point is 00:32:10 Do I feel like there are millions of kids reaching out to, I won't lump you into this, but to unremarkable people such as myself who had remarkable opportunities because America loved unremarkable people and screaming, help us. I mean, just help us for God's sake. I think these kids are remarkable. I have to say, I don't like many adults these days, but I love kids. So that's where we're going to focus. That's where we're going to focus. We're going to teach them how to podcast.
Starting point is 00:32:33 There you go. Hopefully we'll create a little Joe Rogan. Never. No, but the opportunity, I was thinking about this yesterday. I wrote up a thing for Superintendent Buechner. The real opportunity for jobs is what Rebecca and Erica do. It's behind the mic. Everyone wants to be in front of the mic, but the opportunity is in sound, producing, editing.
Starting point is 00:32:51 Because those skills are much more applicable as opposed to the attention. That is correct. We will stress that as school teachers. You and I are going to be school. You're school marm. We're going to become school marms. All right, Scott. We have a listener mail.
Starting point is 00:33:03 Great. Let's go there. Rebecca? You've got. You've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailms. All right, Scott, we have a listener mail. Great. Let's go there. Rebecca? You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. G'day, Scott and Cara. It's Nick from Australia here.
Starting point is 00:33:13 The Australian government's proposed a law that will force Facebook and Google to share some of their ad revenue with media publishers. Unsurprisingly, our news industry loves the idea, while Facebook and Google are just about ready to declare war. Facebook's threatened to block all news content from its platform if this law is enacted. So my question is, do you think they're bluffing, or do you think they're willing to take a hit to their operations in Australia if it discourages other countries from following our lead? Thanks. Good day. I love an Australian. I love an Australian.
Starting point is 00:33:43 I'm the Barbie. You know what? I got to tell you, I love an Australian no matter what. I don't know what it is. They're very likable. Wonderful country. Although troubled, troubled country, but also trying different place. Anyway, let me just say.
Starting point is 00:33:56 Have you been to Sydney? Yes, many times. Have you been to Melbourne? Yes, I love Melbourne. They're wonderful. I haven't been to Perth. I haven't been to Perth. They have very good cities.
Starting point is 00:34:03 A quick stat about Perth is important. The most remote city in the world is identified by a city that has over a million people and it's distance away from another city with a million people. Perth is the most remote city in the world. Which is why I've never been there. I've never traveled to Perth. They have farms. They have farms just off the shore.
Starting point is 00:34:21 They love us in Australia. I went there for a tech event. We should go together. It's a wonderful country. It is. I like Melbourne more than Sydney. I saw the shore. They love us in Australia. I went there for a tech event. We should go together. It's a wonderful country. I like Melbourne more than Sydney. It has a lot of bullshit. Anyway, in any case... I'm burnt in my Australia bubble.
Starting point is 00:34:35 All right. Listen, Nick from Australia. Not a surprise that Facebook's trying to play a hard ball on this issue. This is an issue that's been a big deal in Europe a little bit here. There's not been as much agitation by US publishers, but certainly in Germany and other places of them basically using the content of other people's sweat of their brow and sucking out their vig. And this is something that I think Australian publishers should stick with.
Starting point is 00:35:04 They're not bluffing. They will take it off the platform and you're going to have to live with it. You cannot make a deal with this particular devil on these issues. They are just using your content for their own purposes. They are never going to help you. I've been bugged by Facebook executives to put my content on their site and I'm like, why? There's nothing in it for me. There's nothing in it for me. So I think this is, you got to stick with it. They will absolutely remove content. They should be helping media. They are not interested in it. Scott? Yeah. The problem is, I actually made the mistake of trying to read some of the legislation. It's really bad legislation.
Starting point is 00:35:45 It's very much just pretending to be protection. It's just simply put, it's just targeting Facebook and Google and trying to create all these gymnastics to somehow exonerate everybody else. Look, and you brought this up around banning TikTok. And that is, banning TikTok, it makes sense. You look at China, as Professor Wu said, and say, okay, they've banned every American tech app. But unless you create thoughtful legislation that applies the reasoning and the consistency across different companies, you end up in a society where it's just whoever's in charge makes these decisions. Yes, fair point, fair point. The point of a liberal democracy, the liberal democracy is we have institutions and laws that are applied across all companies to create consistency and momentum and logic.
Starting point is 00:36:35 And the problem with this legislation is it's similar to this notion we're going to ban TikTok. It's just kind of a one-off that is hard to do. What would be the legislation? Is there legislation or what? Or do publishers just have to get together and just decline, stick to each other and say, we're not going to, we don't give a fuck? I think there's probably the best way to do it. It would be some sort of tax on the ad model that every time you have a robot or an algorithm decide to
Starting point is 00:37:00 serve an ad, there is a small tax because if, A, we have this very unhealthy gestalt in Western democracies, especially in the U.S., where we encourage companies to invest in automation algorithms versus editors and human workers because we don't have to pay payroll taxes on the algorithm. So I would do something that, one, taxes automation, taxes robots, taxes algorithms, and two, encourages the algorithmically driven ad model has real externalities for our society because the algorithms immediately realize that it's rage that creates more engagement and more ads. So I would start taxing that. And you'd end up with substantial taxes on things like you'd end up with taxes on the newyorktimes.com, but they wouldn't be nearly as substantial as the taxes on Google or Facebook and might get them to look at another business model. But I think this is a tough one. Or I would just say,
Starting point is 00:37:57 in Australia, we've decided, we've witnessed Facebook and Google and other environments, and we think as a whole, you're a net negative for our society and we're banning you. Now, again, that is executive action that has no consistency. But I predicted a couple of years ago that a Northern European or Latin American nation was going to ban Facebook and it hasn't really happened. Well, I think the only reason they're focusing on Facebook and Google is they're the only game in town. Like that sort of covers the landscape, right? There's nobody else. So what's the only reason they're focusing on Facebook and Google is they're the only game in town. Like, that sort of covers the landscape, right? Right. There's nobody else.
Starting point is 00:38:28 Like, so what's the difference if they focus? It's not a one-off. These are the only players that matter. Well, but, you know, like I said, you know, Vox has algorithmically driven ads being served. Yes, I get it. We're all doing it. We're just not doing it as well. There's nothing any of these guys are doing that everyone else isn't doing.
Starting point is 00:38:45 They're just much better at it, and it freaks us out. But they're beyond better. They are the only game. So what do you do? I think it's the media players that can't sort of look for government to fix this problem in this way. But media publishers have time and again gone to Facebook and Google with promises that they will help monetize. They're not interested in it, and they will lose every time. There's never been any of these deals, whether it's instant articles, whatever.
Starting point is 00:39:13 They never work. And they've done it, and they don't care. We always get fooled again. Fooled again? It's just stop doing deals and take your stuff off their site. You know, the first thing I recommended when I was a new board member on the New York Times, I said, we've got to turn off Google. And they all laughed at me. I'm like, we've got to turn off Google.
Starting point is 00:39:32 We've got to get together with the Murdochs. We've got to get together with the new houses at Condon App. We need to get together with the Pearsons at FT. And we need to take all of our content similar to what record labels do, have one union or one organization representing us, and then we need to license it to the higher bidder. And Microsoft would have come in and paid us billions of dollars
Starting point is 00:39:48 to try and prop up Bing, which at the time was still doing it. It's amazing to me. One of the biggest errors in the history of media, the old media company letting Google crawl their information. All of it, all of it. It really was.
Starting point is 00:40:02 I never forget them coming to me when they did, remember they did the Facebook live videos and stuff? And I thought it was already dangerous. I was already worried about the dangers of it. And they were like, you should put your video. I'm like, why? Explain to me. Like, I'm an idiot. Like, what would I get out of it? Well, you'll be better known. I said, I'm very well known.
Starting point is 00:40:20 I can, I don't know what that, okay, that doesn't, that's no money. That's no dimes or anything like that. I was like, where's the money? Well, over time, I was like, no. I am being optimistic, though, because I do put a lot of stuff on YouTube. You do. You do.
Starting point is 00:40:34 There's certain things, I think you should use them when they work. YouTube, you can actually make money on YouTube, from what I understand. You can actually if you do it right. I find just the stuff I do, like the Prop G show on YouTube, I find it's top of the funnel to drive traffic to something else you can monetize. I've never been able to figure out a way to monetize it, but I find it's an incredible way to create awareness for another business. What about Facebook? You don't use Facebook as much, do you? No, I don't. First off, I was one of the idiots that put my videos on
Starting point is 00:41:03 Facebook and I got this reporting back that said you had 3 million views, and it ends up, what a shocker that the reporting was not accurate. Yeah. And then companies took a ton of money and put it on Facebook video thinking that they— And then jumped, and then jumped. Yeah. And what they did is they attracted— I had a really interesting dinner once in Las Vegas with this creepy old ad guy.
Starting point is 00:41:25 I'll never forget it because he's a very famous creepy old ad guy. You Vegas creepy old ad guy. Those are three things I didn't expect in the same sentence. And after discussing how he put all kinds of wireless stuff in his house, which I was like, I'm going to kill myself at this moment, he was explaining how he would buy an ad on our show like our thing and then it would jump uh and then it would or on our website and then it would attract the kind of people they wanted to and then they would go where they go next and they'd buy the next and the next one because that
Starting point is 00:41:59 was a a quantum level of cheaper so we're just using using you. And I was like, what? Like, and he explained it so perfectly to me that I was like, Oh, I'm like the, you know, the honeypot. And then they go off and buy cheaper sites. And he goes, yeah,
Starting point is 00:42:13 it's really easy. It's the best thing to do. And I was like, Oh, right. But most importantly, where did you have dinner in Vegas? I don't remember.
Starting point is 00:42:20 One of the, I don't remember. One of those steak houses that are just like awful and large, giant steaks. I don't remember. One of those steakhouses that are just like awful and large giant steaks. I don't remember. I love Vegas. You and I will go back together. There we go again. More promises.
Starting point is 00:42:38 More promises. I am going to do something. Who was I going to introduce you to in D.C.? I forget. I don't know. A man. Someone. All right. We're going to do something. Who was I going to interest you to in D.C.? I forget. I don't know. A man. Someone. All right.
Starting point is 00:42:46 We're going to do that. Not a quite-a-day-for-the-dog. You need to be socialized. You'll meet anyone. All right, Scott. We're going to take a quick break. Great. This has been a fascinating discussion today.
Starting point is 00:42:57 What is going on with us? We're having fascinating discussions. Anyway, we'll take one more quick break, and we'll be back for your prediction. Anyway, we'll take one more quick break and we'll be back for your prediction. 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?
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Starting point is 00:44:47 Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Okay, Scott, font of a lot of wisdom today. We really missed your predictions on the podcast. We, uh, what? I'm fonted. Font. Font. You're a font.
Starting point is 00:45:04 You're a font. You're an Oracle. Um, not Larry Ellison fonted. Font. Font. You're a font. You're a font. You're an oracle. Not Larry Ellison's oracle, but an oracle. Anyway, we missed your predictions in the podcast last month. So let's give us something juicy. And by the way, let me just, before you do that, you are correct. There still is no deal announced for TikTok. As you said, it's going to be crickets.
Starting point is 00:45:20 Right. It was supposed to be rumored that it was going to be announced the next day. Yeah, I think the Chinese put a wrench in it. They're going to put a wrench the size of an aircraft carrier in it. Yeah, I think with their export,
Starting point is 00:45:31 nobody wants to buy a TikTok without the algorithm. Nobody wants it. And it really, I feel as if I have to understand these things. I went on TikTok and you've always said this,
Starting point is 00:45:40 that algorithmism, you just wake up two hours later and you're like, why am I still watching these things? Tie-dye. I want to tie-dye suddenly. Speaking of which, my tie-dyed wear, you just wake up two hours later and you're like, why am I still watching these things? Tie-dye. I want to tie-dye suddenly. Speaking of which, my tie-dye wear, you should have answered my son's question, by the way,
Starting point is 00:45:50 because it was a good question. You talked about how professors teach better online. You gave them tips. But how do students use the platform better when they have to constantly be in a Zoom meeting? How do you concentrate? I didn't say he couldn't concentrate. You should have answered his question.
Starting point is 00:46:03 You were just obsessed with his hair. Oh, my God. By the way, he got a haircut and he still has more hair than you will ever have. He's still got a massive haircut. I literally see him at the NYU dorms right now as we speak saying, ladies, do you want to come over and check out my vintage collection of curling irons? I heard nothing when I saw that young man's hair. I am so jealous. It is so good to be Louis Swisher for a lot of reasons. He literally got half that hair taken up and he still has a huge curly head of hair. I was like, it's still long. It's still beautiful. All I know, it's the only thing I know that he is not doing at NYU is distancing. If I had that hair. Yes, he is. He is.
Starting point is 00:46:45 I'm telling you, he is. He just wanted like, how do you study online better than offline? That was his question. I get it. I need a more thoughtful answer. Let's save that for next week. Next week.
Starting point is 00:46:56 I want you to come up with a thoughtful answer instead of making fun of his beautiful locks, which are stunning. I told him to send the bag of hair to you. Anyway. All right. So your prediction. What is this? to send the bag of hair to you. Anyway, all right. So your prediction. What is this? What's a bag of hair? Where's my bag of stoop? Anyways. Okay, predictions. Look, when you have, I remember going to Hungary in the early 90s after business school
Starting point is 00:47:21 and changing a hundred Deutschmarks and I got a suitcase of money and thinking, oh my gosh, I got to go shopping. Once I get that money, I got to go shopping. Then you got to Hungary and you realize there's nothing to buy. But essentially Shopify and Zoom have a bag full of forens, which is the old Hungarian currency,
Starting point is 00:47:43 and they need to go shopping. The currency, Antioch was, they could literally buy the most. They could buy Peloton, and it would be accretive. They could buy. Let's go to Apple, according to you. Yeah. Well, I think Peloton. Well, from a brand fit, it's the most logical one.
Starting point is 00:47:57 We'll see. Apple doesn't like to make acquisitions. But anyways, Apple's going to be in the connected fitness space. It's a question of whether they go in personally or if they make an acquisition. But anyways, the two companies that are going to make some really bold, you could see a Shopify acquire FedEx. That's the kind of currency they have now. It's just so striking how much these firms are worth. So Shopify, my prediction is Shopify and or Zoom are going to make just these titanic acquisitions.
Starting point is 00:48:27 FedEx? I like FedEx. That's interesting. All right. You still have not given me. You said a telco for Zoom, but there isn't one. Hard to imagine. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:48:37 There's just. So what else? If not a telco, what else is there? It's a really interesting company. You could say a question. You'd think, well, could they forward integrate into hardware to try and control the device? But there's very few things available there. Yeah, take it in there.
Starting point is 00:48:52 Right, it's Apple and Google, right? They could reverse engineer into content and decide that they're offering things like, I mean, for example, LinkedIn is getting into education and go into content. I don't know. They're going to forward uh obviously go forward or go backward okay i don't know cable company something okay we'll see something in communications or hardware all right and then shopify fedex i love but not fedex that guy's not going to sell yeah yeah but what about the shopify could do some very interesting things
Starting point is 00:49:23 what if shopify what if shop i mean, I don't think he would sell, but what if Shopify acquired Simon Properties? What if they acquired, Simon spun their B and C model. Yeah, I saw that. Basically, they went good bank, bad bank. There's the stuff where wealthy people go that's on amazing land. For distribution, not for retail, for distribution. Basically, say as
Starting point is 00:49:45 a service they're providing tools to small and medium-sized business what if they provided seven million square feet that on short-term leases to people say you want to store for six months yeah just test it we're very good at this we'll put you in six markets around in that that i think i was just walking down the street in D.C. and I walked, it was in New York. So many empty, empty, empty storefronts. What is going to happen with all of those? Well, we've been, people ask us. Downtown D.C., just empty.
Starting point is 00:50:14 Yeah, so essentially people are asking the destruction in retail. We're going to lose, I think, 25,000 stores this year. Is it structural or is it cyclical? And the answer is yes. It's going to come back, but it's not going to return to the levels we were at. We've been saying for 10 years that- Sandwich shops. It's all sandwich shops that stayed. America's going, America's overstored. And it's, the regression of the mean is still the most
Starting point is 00:50:35 powerful force in the universe. And we're regressing to the mean in a very, very violent way. But retail is still going to be, I mean, we're still going to have, it's still, we're still going to- What retail is going to be in these these and who's going to be in these office space. I just was like, this is like, let's think about that this week. It's an interesting question because now we've sort of like hollowed out retail and delivery. I was just thinking about my relationship with Amazon. I order, I try to go to stores. They just don't have the stuff, right? Like they don't have what I'm looking for. And Amazon always has a choice, right? There's like six things to choose from.
Starting point is 00:51:08 So I was like, I order far too much stuff from Amazon. Or I do other sites, but I tend to do Amazon because the return policy is so easy. I hope other retailers do a better return policy because I bought something from a store that wasn't Amazon and it was onerous to return it because it wasn't quite wrote. Amazon is so easy. It's printing out something, sending it back via UPS, calling UPS. Yeah. But think of it, I think of it a different way. Think of it as, think of it as they're not stores, they're distribution centers or warehouses. Really interesting company that hasn't been in the news much. And I wonder if it ends up, for example, an interesting company for Shopify to purchase would be Prologis.
Starting point is 00:51:49 Oh, yeah. Which is the largest, one of the most valuable REITs in the world, run by kind of the biggest brain in the real estate industry, Hamid Moghadam. But they basically set up warehouses next to every transportation hub or airport in the world. And they've been a huge beneficiary of all of this, right? Yep. Yeah, that's a huge beneficiary of all of this, right? Yep. Yeah, that's a great idea. Logistics. It's got to be logistics.
Starting point is 00:52:10 One of the best pivots in history, Best Buy, that was written off for debt and one of the best performing stocks the last 10 years, a very, very impressive visionary CEO there said, let's stop thinking about our stores as liabilities. Let's think of them as assets and distribution centers. And now if you order a flat screen television in Delray Beach, it's fulfilled out of the Boca Raton store Best Buy faster than if you ordered it from Amazon. So I'm actually, I think there's probably from an investment standpoint, a lot of the retailers that have been so beaten down or a lot of, I would just say, owners of real estate are actually probably pretty interesting places to look right now. Anyways, we'll see.
Starting point is 00:52:46 All right. Okay, good. These are really good predictions. Scott, this is a substantive show because, by the way, we're not going to be on on Monday because it's Labor Day. Labor Day.
Starting point is 00:52:55 And so next Thursday, we're going to read from the Palantir thing. You're going to come back with some thoughts on what Zoom should buy. We've got a lot of assignments for the weekend.
Starting point is 00:53:04 What's going on? Homework. Homework. What are you doing for Labor the weekend. What's going on? Homework. What are you doing for Labor Day weekend? What am I doing for Labor Day? I'm packing up the car and heading back to Florida where hopefully... Back in Florida? You escaped Florida when coronavirus was going crazy.
Starting point is 00:53:20 I never go to Florida. My son calls things the Florida man. He's like, he doesn't love Florida. It's like when something dumb happens, he's like, did it happen in Florida? And I'm like, in fact, it did. No, I'm at the beach. I'm at the beach right now. Where? What beach?
Starting point is 00:53:36 Rehoboth. A friend of mine has a house, an empty house. Right out of college, he used to go down there and get shitty drink. No, it's beautiful. It's very pretty. It's very pretty. I'm here with one of my children. Two of my children, excuse me.
Starting point is 00:53:50 And then we'll go back to work on Monday because my podcast is starting soon. But I'll tell you about that soon. That's right. What's the official launch date of the New York Times podcast? It's called Sway. Just so you know. That was out in New York Magazine. Yes.
Starting point is 00:54:03 Nick Kwa wrote about it. Sway, yes. Are you opening a gay out in New York Magazine. Yes, Nick Kwa wrote about it. Sway, yes. Was he opening a gay club or launching a podcast? You know what? You made fun of Schooled. You made fun of the name Pivot. I'm not listening to you on naming, okay? Naming is not, you have a lot of strengths.
Starting point is 00:54:16 Naming is not one of them. Sway. Let me just say, is Pivot working out for you? I thought about that. I thought of that one. I thought of Pivot Schooled. I'm going to stick with my Sway. This was my idea.
Starting point is 00:54:27 Yes. You'll see. They're doing amazing marketing around it. The New York Times is doing it. It's going to be great. Sway. Because I have it. Look it up.
Starting point is 00:54:34 Look up the word and start to see. You'll see. You'll see. It'll become a thing. It'll become a thing. All right. Yeah. I'm going to make Fetch happen.
Starting point is 00:54:41 I'm going to make Sway happen. Anyway. All right. So just so you know, we'll be airing a recording of Pivot Schooled, which cares what you're named, episode, The Sharing Capitalist, featuring an interview with Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi in place of Tuesday's regular episode. It's a great episode. It's really interesting. Although Scott declined to say that Dara Khosrowshahi put lipstick on cancer. I was hoping for that to happen, but it didn't. It was a really great show.
Starting point is 00:55:08 And so were the rest, and especially last week's, this past week's was really great. And we hope you'll listen to it. It's for free. And please listen. Scott, will you read us out? Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Fernando Fanate engineered this episode. And Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.
Starting point is 00:55:27 Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Vintage curling irons, come to my room. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you.
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