Pivot - Happy(ish) birthday, Facebook.

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

Kara and Scott (sort of) celebrate Facebook's 15th birthday. With pop-ins and hot takes from a couple friends, including Congressman Ro Khanna and podcast Queen Aminatou Sow, they get into how they REALLY feel about the platform. Scott and Kara also talk about the moniker "people of wealth", the future of podcasting, and clap backs from Nancy Pelosi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Clapping back at you, Cara, over your shoulder. You're in Florida again, right?

Correct? You're in Florida? I am. I'm in Delray Beach. I'm actually in Boca, but I think it sounds cooler to say Delray Beach. John's Island or something. I don't know. Something like that down there.

John's Island. How much do you love the clap? How much does Cara love the clap? How much does Kara love the clap? I love everything about Nancy Pelosi these days. You know, I know her pretty well, and she has always been like this. Of course you do. Of course I do. I know everybody.

I know everybody. But she's my representative from San Francisco. I know her. Her husband's on the board of Georgetown. Paul Pelosi was fantastic. Hunky. He's real hunky. He's lovely.

So I know them. And so she's always been like this. And I think people are starting to get a taste of what she's actually like versus the picture that the right wing has painted her. And sometimes she's walked right into, you know what I mean, the idea. But she's really sort of come onto her own. She's moved into the tough grandma phase, like taking no shit. So I like the whole, I like the whole jam.

Well, and the left wing. Yeah. She wasn't a lock on the leadership or speaker position. She gives no fucks now. I like the whole thing and the clap was fantastic.

Her whole jam is working for me. And I think for a lot of people. Someone definitely coached her. Yeah. No, she's like that. I'm telling you, she's like that.

Some people do not break through until much later in their lives. So here she is in terms of people. I'm waiting. Where's my breakthrough, Kara? Oh, by the way, speaking of breakthroughs, I've thought of a couple nicknames for you. You told me that, which I think is key. You told me that you're supporting Kamala Harris. Is that right? Well, no, I'm supporting her. I like her the best of the ones so far.

Okay, you like her. Whatever. Support her. Amy Klobuchar is announcing on Sunday. You're Karla Swisher. Karla. Karla. Oh, my. Karla. No.

Okay, I got a better one. Amy Klobuchar is announcing on Sunday, supposedly. Going back. There's been some hit pieces on her about how her staff has a lot of turnover. It'll be interesting. And Biden's will sometime come in sooner or later. There's going to be a lot. Don't try and move on from my nicknames.

What? I'm moving on. This is a good one. You're going to like this one. Don't try and move on from my nicknames. What? I'm moving on. This is a good one. You're going to like this one. Listen to me. We have to get started. K-Swish. No.

K-Swish. Not K-Swiss. K-Swish. People have called me that. Oh, that's awesome. That's okay. That's awesome. I'm going to call you back to Senator Klobuchar.

Here's my nickname for you, Scott. Okay, Scott. Facebook turned 15 this week. And at Ricoh, we've been talking a lot about whether or not that's been a net gain or loss for the society as a whole. We did a whole series of things, and a lot of people weigh in and write little essays about whether it's a net plus or minus to humanity. So we're friends of the pivot. We reached out for their take. They had written stuff for Vox and Recode, and so we're going to play them.

First, Antonio Garcia-Martinez thinks we're all overreacting. He's a former Facebook employee. I think 15 years from now, we're going to look back at a lot of the sort of panic reactions we're having now and find them kind of amusing. You know, it's the destiny of new media to sort of burst on the scene, freak everyone out, cause more than one negative outcome, which Facebook certainly has, and then go on to become a completely unremarkable utility that's part of the sort of technological landscape and that nobody notices anymore. Lest we forget, radio used to be one of these inflammatory media that people as vile as Adolf Hitler or, you know, various other demagogues, even in the U.S.,

used to much effect in the 30s and 40s. And now, here we have NPR begging us for cash in exchange for a tote bag. The reality is that cultures and societies adapt to new media. And we return to some equilibrium state after the shock of that media has worn off and we've adapted to it. All right. So that's what he has to say. What do you think of Antonio's thoughts? He's very active on Twitter, and he sort of pushes back at the media and everything else. What do you think of his take? Okay.

So the latest talking point that has co-opted Mr. Garcia or Mr. Garcia-Martinez is the notion that we can conflate Facebook and these vehicles with other media communications vehicles. Yeah, he does that. Somehow, Mark Zuckerberg, if you notice, is now saying a lot of the criticism Facebook has fallen under is similar to all the criticism of the internet. He's trying to bear hug the internet and say we're the internet. He went back to the Gutenberg Bible, though. He was like, he's reaching back for the, not the Gutenberg Bible but printing press, the original printing press. Yeah, but the people making – the people who were actually – who owned the rights to the printing press weren't ignoring bad things. Had they had the options, the tools, and the capital to make books less dangerous, they would have and they did. And that is what this management team is failing to do.

So to conflate himself with the internet is just another, again, delay in optimization. That's what I call it, the Gutenberg ploy. There you go. Anyway, the next one. Your colleague at NYU thinks we should put Facebook back in Pandora's box. Let's hear from Adam Alter.

He's an associate professor of marketing at NYU. I think Facebook is a force for bad in the world. I think there's only one good thing that Facebook has done, and that's allowed people who have existing offline relationships to rekindle those relationships if they've lost touch with people. But I think in every other context, Facebook has done much more bad than good. It is a time suck. It fuels political division. It's designed to sell things to people that they don't need. It violates our privacy and then weaponizes the information that it gathers to keep us glued to the screen. It fuels a very unhealthy reliance on other people for social approval. It's a portal to bullying and ostracism. I mean, the list goes on. And so I feel pretty firmly that Facebook is

essentially a force for bad more than it is a force for good in the world. All right, Scott, what do you think of your colleague about these things? Well, I'm biased. I think Adam is a gangster. He's a rock star in the world of marketing, and he's got an Australian accent and dreamy, so he ticks every box for me. What do you think? I think he's right.

I don't know if you can put it back in the box. It's all well and good to say you can. I mean, I had a quote in there saying there's really nothing to be done. They broke these things, and can they fix them? I think that's the question. So putting them back in the box is not really an option. But he thinks it's a force for bad more than good in the world. So I'm not sure what we can do.

I don't think you can regulate yourself out of this. So I think that's the problem. All right, next one, Representative Ro Khanna. He is a Silicon Valley representative in Congress. I just had lunch with him this week in the Senate dining room. It was lovely. With Nancy? You and Nancy and Ro? No, it was just Ro for lunch. And we ran into Kristen Gillibrand. It's quite a scene up there, I have to tell you. It's fascinating to watch.

Washington? In the congressional office? In that dining room. I had a lovely crab cake. It was very nice and some navy bean soup. It was lovely. But it's just the whole scene here, jam here, makes me laugh in many ways. You had the best line at that event you hosted in D.C. You said, it's great to be in D.C. I feel ten times sexier when I'm here. I do.

It's true. That was the best line about D.C. I wore jeans. I shouldn't have done that. That was bad. So I'll ask you after this clip what you think of Representative Khanna. Facebook is an extraordinary platform that has done extraordinary things and also has, unfortunately, a dark side. On the positive note, you have a platform that has enabled parkland kids to make the nation aware of gun violence.

You've had a platform that's allowed for the rise of candidates like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It's given a voice to insurgents. You have a platform that's mobilized on issues of the Green New Deal and human rights. All of that said, the downside has been dramatic. I mean, there's no doubt there was election meddling in 2016 that distorted our democracy, systematic disinformation campaigns of hate and propaganda. That is totally unacceptable and it's a real threat to American democracy. So in short, I believe that Facebook will do more good than bad. It has the potential certainly to do that, but it's going to require thoughtful leadership of people who are going to stop the platform for being used to incite violence.

And we're going to make sure that we don't have election interference in the future. All right. What do I think of Ro Khanna? I think he's very smart. I had a really enjoyable lunch with him. I think he's thinking about these issues and sort of he's trying to stay balanced.

That's the problem he's got is that he – it's not that he represents Silicon Valley because he doesn't. But he – the companies are in – some of the companies, the big companies, I think Google is in his constituent area. And so I think he's trying to do sort of the middle ground. And he's the one I wrote about this internet bill of rights to come up with different regulation based on that. And I think he's very thoughtful. I think he has to toe a really unusual line to be sort of in the middle of this. And I think that puts him, it's a problem for people like him to do that. What do you think?

Yeah, I think he threads the needle well because he's sort of, I mean, if anyone's sort of paid for or should be kind of the spokesperson for the industry, it's him. But he strikes me as a pretty thoughtful guy. I think the interesting thing about this question or this navel-gazing that everyone's going through on the 15th birthday of Facebook is the dangerous word in all of this is big tech. Are we net gainers from big tech? And the word I don't like or I think is dangerous is the word net. And that is that we do this calculus and decide if on the whole, they're a net positive, then argument over, leave them alone.

And pesticides, we're likely net gainers from pesticides, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have an FDA. We're likely a net gainer from fossil fuels. We're likely a net gainer from coal, as angry as that gets people. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have emission standards. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have emission standards.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't have carbon cap and trade. And just because I do believe we're net gainers from big tech, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be liable for incenting violence. That shouldn't mean they are not held liable when there are skyrocketing rates of depression among teenage girls. rates of depression among teenage girls. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be hit really hard when it's clear they don't put in place the safeguards to ensure our elections or their platforms aren't weaponized to flip our elections. And let's go one by one. I would argue Google is a net positive. Still thinks we should do. I would argue that Apple is a net positive. Amazon, as much as I hate to say it, I think it is a net positive. Amazon, as much as I hate to say it, I think it's a net positive. I think Facebook and possibly Twitter are net negatives. I believe

the damage they have done, those two platforms, is greater than the net positive. That is what the other companies think too, including Microsoft and others. I had that quote in the column last week about Facebook contagion. Like they're the ones behaving badly and everyone else has to pay the price. And I think that's true. I would agree with you on that. And I think those are the two platforms most irresponsible in managing them.

Sloppy management. That's the kindest way of saying it's sloppy. So I agree with you on that. I can't believe we agree. We're not supposed to agree as much several different people. I know, I've heard we need more. You're an idiot, Scott.

We need more attention. No, but I several different people. I know. I've heard we need more. You're an idiot, Scott. No. But I do think that. I'm used to that. I do think in general, if I had to weigh it all, right now we're in a net negative position for tech, I would say, among people. But, you know, maybe not general people. But I think definitely the chattering class is certainly irritated by tech more than it's ever been. All right.

Last one, Amina Tassou. She is a friend of mine and she also is a great writer. She has a great podcast called Ask Your Girlfriend, all kinds of stuff. She was the more like she loved Facebook, and now she wants to break up with it. So let's listen to her. The idea of whether Facebook is good or bad 15 years in is very complicated. It was very good for a time. Like, are you kidding me?

Got to, like, hang out with all your friends online. You got to, like, make crushes in your various college classes. And also just, like, connect with all of your friends who were far away. I was an international student at college. And so something like Facebook was actually like insanely valuable in the sense that it connected all of the far flung pieces of my world. It's accurate to say that for me, I did not think of privacy and security when I was making these like intense, amazing human connections because it just seemed fun. And as the years wore on, you know, like the matrix

became quite clear that we were in a real conundrum. And so I would say that Facebook today, it's not a place that sparks joy, uh, Marie Kondo. It is a place that sparks a lot of anxiety and an intense amount of guilt. It is not a company that morally I can support. And I know that like I'm a living, breathing, like thinking person, I should get off of Facebook. But, you know, for the friends that still stay on there and the family that still shares the baby photos that I want to see and just, like, the tangled web that we've woven for ourselves on there, like, I think about that all the time. All right.

I think Aminah, of all of them, really does express this great hope idea of it being something good. And then it's sort of, it's like a bad boyfriend. Like it suddenly occurs to you that this is a bad boyfriend kind of thing. What do you think, Scott? You lost me a bad boyfriend. You hope, wait, you hope, you mean you hope it works out well. Yeah, you're like you believe in love and then life intervenes kind of thing.

And then he weaponizes you and you ruin America? Yeah, argue about logistics and things like that. You know what I mean? It's not quite as delightful as it seemed kind of thing. I think she was expressing that. There was a great hope, like the Arab Spring, and this is how we can connect, and this is so cool. And then the reality settles in that it's a lot more complicated.

I think she does represent a lot of people I talk to, regular people. I think the better angel strategy is a flawed and a dangerous one. I think all of us, including myself, keep hoping that – and I do believe you call it shaming them. I do think that's an effective tool and an important tool. But I think we keep hoping that the better person who's more concerned with the Commonwealth is going to show up. And that doesn't happen. Just as I think, you know, going into Starbucks or you deciding at home you're not going to have plastic straws, that's all fine and nice and turning your thermostat down. But until we elect

people who actually put regulations or just outright ban plastic, we're going to have more plastic in the ocean than fish in 2050. And so until we actually create economic disincentives, i.e. start adding a zero to every fine, start making these companies subject to the same liability laws that every other media company is liable to, hoping that the better Jeff Bezos shows up is just not going to happen. The better. What is your theme?

What is your theme? You're better. I have the Gutenberg ploy, but what is yours? The better? The better Be theme? You're better. I have the Gutenberg ploy, but what is yours? The better? The better Bezos? The better Bezos. The less evil twin shows up? By the way, did you see he was at Super Bowl?

Who? Bezos? Was he? Bezos was at the Super Bowl. You probably didn't watch the Super Bowl. By the way, this guy, and I recognize this because I'm in kind of a 50, 60-year-long stage called the midlife crisis that just keeps going and going and going. This guy, we are literally watching a midlife crisis on steroids.

He might as well put out a reply all email that says, I'm about to start sleeping with my secretary and get hair plugs. Okay. You know what? I'm going to shut you down. Seriously. Seriously. At the Super Bowl?

What is he doing? He might like the Super Bowl. Leave him alone. He's a billionaire. He's the richest man on earth. He can go wherever he pleases. Keep it to yourself, Jeff. No, no.

Keep it to yourself. He's a person, even if he's Jeff Bezos. I'm sorry. You are absolutely incorrect. I think that's the nicest thing you've said about him. He's a person. I like Jeff in a lot of ways. You know, I do admire what he's done.

He just delivered fantastic things to my house again, once again, flawlessly. It's just really kind of fascinating. I have yet to see them screw up on anything that he's done. He just delivered fantastic things to my house again, once again flawlessly. It's just really kind of fascinating. I have yet to see them screw up on anything that I've done. I'm really kind of amazed. Do you think the $3 billion he's taking out of Long Island school system, municipal fire and school districts? Do you think that's an awesome move by Jeff? No, I think that's not an awesome move, and I think they're going to push that one back. I think that's going to be pretty good.

So you think that they just appointed someone who could possibly kibosh it, who has been a vocal critic of it. You think, and you might be making news here, this is a prediction, Carla. You believe, you believe that HQ2 in Queens is not going to happen? I didn't say it wasn't going to happen. I said they're going to have to not get all the gimmies. I think some of the gimmies are going to be rolled back. That's all.

So it's, you know, I don't know if you saw Farhad Manjoo's column in the Times today called Abolish Billionaires. Oh, okay. I thought it was like up on Billionaire Mountain or People of Means Mountain, which is not my new name for it, Billionaire Mountain. They're very upset by this column. That's such an awesome name, Farhad Manjoo. That's seriously, he can walk into any newsroom and say, don't question me. I'm fucking Farhad Manjoo. You know, he's a very sweet man. He doesn't do that like you might.

He's very self-effacing. He needs to start. Anyway, what do you think about his abolished billionaires? And then I want to move on to Angela Ahrens at Apple. Abolished billionaires. There's definitely a level of class warfare. Look, income inequality and what billionaires or all of us don't realize long term or don't acknowledge is that whenever we get to massive levels of income inequality throughout history, the good news is they're always self-correcting. The bad news is – well, that's the bad news. The bad news is

that the vehicles of self-correction are always consistently three things, war, famine, or revolution. And we're in the midst of what I would call a slow revolution, largely brought on by income inequality. So it is in everyone's best interest to figure out a way not to have the levels of income inequality we are barreling towards. And rather than going after billionaires as a class, I think that the real culprits here are the citizenry that has decided that the class or the economic class that has benefited the most and kind of killed it over the last 20 years should probably pay more taxes. And I think it's an economic argument. It's an argument about policy. But it doesn't have to be an argument that says the moment you become worth a billion dollars, you're less noble and you're less of a good person.

People will avoid their taxes. They will make excuses. They will give to philanthropy, which is consumption. I don't think we should excuse anybody. Pablo Escobar built parks after becoming a billionaire. We need to have – and this goes to the clip your winner last week. We need to have an adult conversation around which economic group can afford to offset the massive escalation in debt we're incurring because the notion that we're going to reduce spending in this nation is a popular notion and it never happens. But I don't like where we're going with the whole 70%. The far left is saying,

using the number 70% or trying to somehow label this class as lesser people or that they're the enemy. That's not a productive conversation. And yet, that's where we're going. That's where we're going. And what did you think of the article? What did you like about it? You know, do an article or get noticed. You know what I mean?

The idea. He was sort of bringing in, let us bring up this idea. And then he talked to Tom Steyer, which made me laugh because there's a billionaire that's trying to stop billionaires, like whatever, Tom. And then I think there is a feeling of when I think about it, $164 billion that Jeff Bezos has or $64 billion that Marx has. I'm like, there is something way out of whack in terms of our taxes there's something going and i know some of it was made through innovation and things like that and he deserves and he made it but it's it's it's gonna make people it's gonna it's like not so much when we don't have basic services and things like that so uh when 27 people don't have more wealth in the

southern hemisphere it's incredible but we've we have – this is the world we wanted in America. We have deliberately chosen a Hunger Games-like economy where everybody believes they might be the lottery winner. And they're not. And so rather than post-World War II, I think America's collective goal with our tax policy and the way we viewed celebrities and wealth was we wanted to create millions of millionaires. I think that was our collective goal economically. And it appears that we have shifted that goal to we want to crown the first trillionaire, that we're willing. Everybody realizes the lottery economy and like playing the lottery is a bad idea.

But my ticket's going to win, baby. Or my son could go to work for Google or my son could be the next billionaire. So we've created a protected privileged class. and people are just coming to grips with the fact that the lottery is a bad deal. I agree. I'm going to be the world's first trillionaire. Anyway, very quickly, Angela Arendt's leaving Apple. She ran the Apple stores in the retail division.

She's a very talented woman from Burberry's, one of the few women executives at Apple. She's replaced by another woman. But what do you think of the store's situation in this? I don't really know the back story. I don't know the back story. Angela pulled off an incredible gangster move in the world of luxury, and that is she rebranded and repositioned Burberry, which was this tired British brand that meant plaid and bad merchandise,

and using digital more as a marketing vehicle, talking about how we can make it rain on Instagram, and we're going to live stream the fashion show from Singapore, which I would call kind of fake innovation. But to their credit, they essentially were able to reposition the brand on the backs of at least the PR around digital innovation. It created huge shareholder wealth. And good for her, leveraged that incredible repositioning of the brand

to go become the highest paid person at Apple, which, by the way, is a great reflection on Tim Cook. I always thought that the best CEOs are the ones that are always the number two or number three best paid person in the company each year. And over the long term, they're almost always the best paid and that's fine. But each year there should be someone in the company that's outperformed to the extent where they make more than the CEO. And she made, by my math, about a quarter of a billion dollars over the last five years working at Apple. Now, having said that, I love Apple stores, number one per square foot in the world, revolutionized the world of retail. People will say, what is the most accretive decision in the history of business?

People would say it's Apple's decision to release the iPhone. I think they get the brand right, but the decision wrong. I think it was their gangster decision to open 600 stores and reallocate capital out of broadcast television into stores where people still went in and touched the brand, if you will. I would argue, though, and I want to get your viewpoint. In the last five years, I'm not sure the head of stores has been worth a quarter of a billion dollars. And I believe the conversation that took place was, Angela, thank you. Angela, the multi-channel is good. The click and collect, the pickup is better.

But we probably, you know, the quarter of a billion. I mean, I'm trying to think of an athlete that was a great athlete but probably wasn't worth what they were being paid. I think the guy Sue on the Rams that came from the Dolphins. The Dolphins cut him out because it wasn't amazing. You can do sports because I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, I'm going to lose it too. I'm in over my head on sports, but you hear what I'm saying. I think she was great, and I think she was—was the question, is she amazing or was she overpaid? The answer is yes. All right, that's your take. Well, where are stores going? Where do you think stores are going? Oh, there will be fewer stores, but they will be strategically more important.

So organizations like Simon Properties or General Growth that have the nicest malls will be fine because the death of stores has been greatly exaggerated. And while broadcast television or all the things you do to build a brand pre-broadcast are getting weaker and weaker, because what is the media that's growing having common, Cara? It has no advertising. I mean, how do you know you're wealthy? You don't have to subject yourself to this shitty thing called advertising. Advertising has become a tax. The poor and the technologically illiterate have to pay, but you still have to go into stores. Not as often, but still 80% of the time, maybe 85% of the time. I still like it.

I was there yesterday. Oh, they're wonderful. They're wonderful. The question is, have they changed much in five years? No, they need to be a little more exciting. I think they need to be clean. They need a little refresh, as they say. And people are catching up.

There's some really interesting innovations in stores. They need refresh. So we'll see. What is the one thing you would do in an Apple store? What would you suggest? Have a coffee shop. Yeah. High margin.

Coffee shop. Their coffee. The best coffee. The most delicious. And then whoever is overseeing the coffee division should run as a centrist candidate for president. Boom! We're done, Scott. We're going to go and get back.

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He keeps saying boom and called me Carmela. I don't know why. Carla, Carla. You know what? Stop. We're going to stay on this idea of rich people. Let's trash the rich. Let's trash the rich right now. So Howard Schultz, who I do like very much, is still going around talking about rich people in a bad way. He's giving billionaires a bad name, I think.

And he wants to change the way we talk about billionaires. So let's listen to what he has to say. The author of Winner Takes All sent in a question and said, do you agree that billionaires have too much power in American public life? Yeah, you know, the moniker billionaire now has become the catchphrase. I would rephrase that and I would say that people of means have been able to leverage their wealth and their interest. All right.

So he doesn't like the moniker billionaire, and he wants to be called people of means, which is like, oh, Jesus. Criminies, Howard. He's so thoughtful. He really is. He writes the most thoughtful emails. He's a very thoughtful man.

But man, is he not going. He just, oh, God. Lordy Lou. What do you think about people of means? Yeah, look, everybody's piling on. Come on. He's about to figure out that it's pretty hot in the kitchen, right? Okay.

Oh, let me put it this way. People of means tend to surround themselves with people of brown noses because you have people around you who kiss your ass and tell you how awesome you are, laugh at your bad jokes. And when you say something like, don't refer to people as billionaires, but people of means, he's used to people around him going, that's genius, Howard. You're absolutely right. We need to change that. And the wonderful thing about our process is people get put through the ringer in the kitchen and the ones that emerge emerge stronger. I mean, you do have a, I mean, this is the mother of all vetting processes,

right? And my prediction, and I'll use this as my prediction, I don't think, I think he's going to decide not to run. If he were to really want to make a difference, he would probably decide what issues are important to him and then go out and be and use some of his capital and his star power to support candidates who are willing to put up with the bullshit that I think he's going to decide he is not willing to put up with. All right. OK. Because he wants to get back in his thing. All right. OK.

And your fail or win of the week? My fail or win? Oh, my fail is I'm angry at Jack Dorsey again. Me too. Do you see my fight with him on Twitter? Do you see his response to me? His obnoxious response about me asking him to do an interview? He actually responds to you?

Oh, yeah. It was a whole big thing. He goes, he wrote, podcasts are fun or something like that. And I wrote, I have a podcast because I've been asking him to do an interview. And he wrote back, he's like, you know, I've talked to you many times. I'm trying to branch out. And I was like, you've got to be an interview. And he wrote back. He's like, you know, I've talked to you many times. I'm trying to branch out. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. And most people were like, you're just too scared to get in an interview.

100%. You know what I mean? And then he responded with something else, and then every day I'm going to just pillory him. But go ahead. Hey, Jack, reach down, fill those round things, and come on the show. Anyways, so look, I'm on Twitter, and I tweeted out, I've been thinking a lot about, there's so much noise around how San Francisco and New York need to be made more affordable and a lot of navel gazing and thought pieces.

My feeling is that that's a ridiculous conversation. I've never understood how you make a city more affordable. And I also think that's actually in many ways a function. It has negative externalities. You've got to address low-income housing. But I think the objective should be to make Detroit and St. Louis more expensive or figure out a way to invest in those categories so more businesses and more people or those cities want to move there. Thereby, if you will, driving up prices. And I basically put out a tweet saying the problem isn't SF and New York affordability.

The problem is St. Louis and Detroit should be more expensive. And a bunch of tweets, a lot of good arguments back saying, Scott, that's the wrong problem. A lot of thoughtful things. Some of the things I love about Twitter. And then a comment from somebody that said, so translation, I've got mine. Fuck the rest of you. And I thought, wow, that's a really incendiary thing to say. That's not what I meant at all. And I looked at the person, I looked at the account, and I went onto their Twitter page, and they had been sending out AOC 70% tax rate, all these very, very kind of far left statements, and then all these far

right statements. And I'm like, okay, this is an ar left statements. And then all these far right statements. And I'm like, okay, this is an arsonist. This is an account run by somebody else, whether it's a troll farm in Albania or whether it's somebody trying to get somebody elected or suppress the vote who's identified me as one of the, I don't know, 7 million most influential people on Twitter, maybe, and is purposely trying to pick fights and divide us. And if I can figure this out in about 30 seconds, then the notion that Jack Dorsey is trying to figure it out is just a lie. And when he stands in front of Congress and raises his right hand and says, we have a

responsibility to promote a positive dialogue, he is lying to Congress. dialogue, he is lying to Congress. So my fail or my loser is Jack Dorsey, who despite the silence retreats, despite the namaste bullshit, despite the beard, despite the nose ring, is making America a worse place. All right then. Okay. Boom. Boom. Where are my antidepressants? I want to know if you think it's a loser when Gimlet, maybe I'm moving on to another thing. I, I, I, I really appreciate your endorsement. But come on the show, Jack, but come on the show. I'm trying to get him to come on the show. You know, at work with Elon, I just kept texting at him. I'm doing it to Alexandria Casio. I'm being nice to her cause I like her. Uh, but Jack, I'm being somewhat aggressive with, um, so he's not coming on the show, whatever, whatever. Uh, he's coming. He's, he's going to on the show. Whatever, whatever.

He's coming. He's going to do it. Or maybe, I'm sorry. When he does, you're going to give me like $10. So Gimlet Media, the Spotify thing, what do you think? Peter Kafka broke the story. Talk to Alex Blumberg about the deal. You can hear the rest of the interview on Peter's podcast, but here's a little short, short little tape.

Like our basic idea, the thing that motivates us is that we're at the second golden age of, at the dawn of the second golden age of audio. And there's just this explosion, this flourishing of new kinds of storytelling, new kinds of programming that's made possible by on-demand audio. And that's growing quite fast, just globally. And it's growing really fast on Spotify, but the actual size of the industry is still very small. Podcasts are probably half a billion dollar industry this year. And there's basically a disconnect between the number of people who are listening and the amount of shows they're listening to and the amount of money coming into podcasting.

What do you think about this, Scott? Well, Cara, you're the king and queen of podcasts. What do you think about this? Well, Cara, you're the king and queen of podcasts. What do you think? I think I need $400 million. I'm thinking I should have gone and done only podcasts. You need to be a person of means? No, I need to be a person of means, and I should have done – I had the sense of podcasts early, and I should have built a company like Alex's.

I think I was capable of it. I feel stupid. No, I'm kidding. No, I'm not kidding. I think it's interesting. I think podcasts are really good businesses right now, and the really good ones are going to rise to the top. So I'm pretty excited about it. I think there will probably be a shakeout.

Yeah. So the total market for podcasts is $350 million or about one quarter of the – one quarter is where the bad is in the Super Bowl is the entire market for all podcasts. That's the bad news. The good news is it's growing fast. What's interesting about podcasts is the audience over-indexes on Young and Wealthy, which advertisers love. And the really interesting thing about podcasts, and I'm new to this whole medium, is that the advertising – I find the advertising less offensive and interruptive than in other formats, which might be what makes podcasting the only growth medium that is ad-supported. Yeah, they are. They're kind of fun, too.

We've done some fun ads. You know what's interesting? I'll tell you. My take on it is I have never had such fervent fans. Like literally last night I was speaking at Johns Hopkins Center for Advanced whatever, whatever, something, some fancy think tank thing. And two people hugged me, hugged me like, I love you. Like it was like, okay.

Like I do not get that when I was a writer or do my conference. Same thing. It happens every day someone comes up to me and wants to talk to me and is excited to meet me. And it's really – and they say, how is Galloway? Like they see you as a character that they like. And then I was down at Anthem down at the Wharf in Washington, D.C. and John Lovett had a sold-out show of 3,200 people for Love It or Leave It. It was just really interesting.

You know, $30 a pop, that's a really good business. Anyway. Yeah, you know how, to be honest, Cara, though, you know how it feels when someone comes up and interrupts me in the middle of the day and says, oh, I really like what you do. You know how it really feels? What? It feels wonderful. It's really nice. I like it too. It feels wonderful. I love it. It makes me feel affirmed. We enjoy it. People act, they're embarrassed because they're literally think they interrupted me. I'm like, I'm sorry, do that again. What did you say? You like me? You really like me? Yeah, I really like it. It's nice. It's

really nice. So Scott, very quickly, prediction. We got to go. So Snap had, I think their stock bumped 20% because they're not losing users. It was the first time that they reported flat user growth. I'm pulling for them. You're pulling for them? I am. So my prediction is that when people are near death, oftentimes there's this effect where they will literally have a burst of energy and get up and go garden or cook a meal, and then they go back to their room and die. This is literally Snap getting a burst of energy, going into the kitchen, and cooking.

The deceleration, the decline, and the death rattle of Snap is about to resume. You're wrong. I think they've got some really interesting people, including several really prominent women were just hired. I think they can do something. I think he's a very creative guy, and he's got to professionalize that company. But, you know, I like what they're doing, and we'll see if they can do it. I agree with you.

It's hard. It's going to be hard. It's going to be super hard. But I do like—it's so—I was at their headquarters in New York, and literally even the room was creative. This room they had that you're not supposed to talk about, but it has all the Snapchats on the walls and stuff like that. It was a wonderful place to be.

And they have a creativity that is very enjoyable whenever you're around them. Thank you very much. I think you're wrong. I think they can pull it out. They're going to need more than a prominent woman in an escape room. I know. They just hired some executives I really like. I'm going to go opposite.

He is so number two, your man crush. First is Elon. The second is Evan. And the third is John Lovett. Do you know? I love John Lovett. Love it? Love it.

No, love it. Love it or leave it. Love it. You know who I have a man crush on? Paul Pelosi. That's who I have a man crush on. Thank you very much. Paul Pelosi?

Yeah. I know nothing about Paul Pelosi. No, look him up. More than Kellyanne Conway's husband. He's a tremendous guy. He's on the board. He's just tremendous. I really like him.

And I think someone should write about him because he's a really interesting fellow. All right. I have no other predictions besides that. Scott, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to seeing you next week. Where will you be coming from? I'll be in New York maybe. I think New York.

You know, it's a bad sign, but I have absolutely no idea where I'm going to be next week. All right. Then I won't see you in New York when I'm there. But I'm looking forward to talking. There's going to be lots to talk about coming up. Rebecca Sinanis

produces the 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 for more of a breakdown

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