Pivot - Impeachment… it happened, Peter Thiel’s influence at Facebook, and prediction: “FedEx gets acquired"

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

Kara and Scott talk about what impeachment might mean for business. Also they talk about Peter Thiel's influence behind the scenes at Facebook and their political ad policies. Meanwhile, SoftBank is on an on-going disaster. A personal win for Kara is Amazon banning third-party sellers from using FedEx (after her recent tweet-storm). Which brings Scott to predict that FedEx will get acquired in the next couple of years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Hi, everyone. Get started at HubSp do. I know you. You know, my brother bought a Peloton all by himself this week. It's working. I think these ads are working because everyone, like three people I know bought a Peloton for this Christmas, just so you know. Yeah. But you're not getting one. You know what I'm sending you? The mind runs wild with that question, but I will go for it. I'm sending you an old fruitcake that I've been sending around for years.

That's what I'm sending you, a really old fruitcake. That's what I'm doing. That's sweet. Thank you for that. Happy holidays. Thank you for that. Happy holidays to you because we can now say happy holidays again. We can.

That's right. What happened? What happened? What's the big news today? There's so much big news. Well, impeachment. You heard of it? It's happening.

Yes, we have to talk about it because Congress voted to impeach President Trump. He's the only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. He, of course, obviously the vote was Republicans versus Democrats. They sort of essentially just screamed. And someone said it was like the Democrats were being super serious and like wearing suits and dark, you know, like we're so sorry to do this, but it's part of the Constitution. And the Republicans drove a Ford 150 into the floor of the House and shot off a T-shirt cannon.

Like they just, it was just a crazy day of watching it. And they did it. And then Trump, of course, immediately insulted a dead man and had a crazy bunch of tweets and stuff like that. So what do you think the impact on everybody, tech, media, the world at all or not? Or we forget it next week with whoever has won the Masked Singer? I don't know. I think its impact will be felt, but I think it will be a delayed reaction. I think its impact will be felt, but I think it'll be a delayed reaction.

I do think, and again, I'm so close to this, and I get more than I get wrong in terms of predictions around business and more wrong than I get right around politics because I'm just too close to it. But I got to think this is just a bad look for the Republicans and for the president. He's, you know, you're right, he's the third president to be impeached, but he's the first to be impeached in his first term. Usually it takes us six or seven years to figure out the criminality of the person we're impeaching, and in this case it only took us three years. So it's a bad look. I thought there was some interesting moments, though. Such as? female congresspeople who were veterans, who were seen as moderates, that they're kind of what I, it seemed to be a more thoughtful

examination of the issue and then them deciding to impeach. I hope that that creates more power or creates more reverence for moderates among Democrats. I think they explain themselves well. I think they explain themselves well and they look dignified. They look dignified as opposed to the one guy screaming about Jesus and Pearl Harbor.

Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate. I was like, Jesus had a much harder time. And I'm thinking the people at Pearl Harbor did, too. That was just nuts. Absolutely. That was crazy. I couldn't believe how far they're going.

And, like, Liz Cheney. I mean, well, she's just an awful thing. I couldn't believe how far they're going. And like Liz Cheney, I mean, well, she's just an awful thing. It really literally was 100 million white guys and two mean ladies voting for no impeachment. It was sort of a weird look and then a very varied and interesting and diverse group of people that did very, I thought, quite good speeches. I don't know. I think Nancy Pelosi ran a classy impeachment.

Yeah. You know, and now she might delay it. She might delay sending it over to Mitch McConnell. I mean, the interesting thing was more about the process and the outcome I hear. But one, the gangster move here might be, and I don't know if it's already been decided, she's sending the articles over. But to withhold the articles and never even send them to the Senate for the trial, basically saying if this is going to be a kangaroo court, we'll just let the impeachment stand and we won't even acknowledge your sham trial. I thought, oh my gosh, that was such a gangster strategic move. Also, I had a moment, you know, I think the most powerful moments are the unexpected one,

the call on an instinct. When she announced that Article 2 of impeachment had passed or had been voted affirmatively, and then a few people clapped, and she looked at him like a mom looks at kids saying, if you slam the screen door again, there's going to be trouble. Right, exactly. Did you feel, I literally felt my bone shake, and it took me back to when I was a kid, and I used to get a lot of those looks from my mom before she would literally chase me down and hit me. And it, like, took me back. She runs that place. She does.

She's great. She is. She has a lot of grandchildren, by the way. She's a lot. She's got a big family and knows how to handle them. And I think that she's handled, she's handled this beautifully. I have to say, I'm so impressed with Nancy Pelosi. I like her personally.

I know her pretty well. But I have to say, she's just handled this with the class, the class. And I think even as he goes after her teeth and it's just, I just don't know when they're going to pay. Because like, look at Carly Fiorina, speaking of candidates who don't handle themselves. I just had her on the podcast and she was saying he had had to be impeached but then said she might vote for him. Like, that was strange and odd. So there's a lot of people in the Republican Party that are just pretzeling themselves.

Well, if you call Carly Fiorina ugly, she will vote. She will support your impeachment. But if you call your wife ugly, he will defend you, i.e. Senator Cruz. I mean, at least Carly, you know, I don't know. We've hit so many lows with this guy. The new low I found, I just, I mean, one of those moments where you're like, Jesus, this guy really doesn't have any sense of decency, where the comments he made about the deceased representative Dingell.

Yeah, Dingell, yeah. I mean, just to remind people, because if people are like me, I literally didn't watch it yesterday. I started watching The Joker, that very disturbing film with Joaquin Phoenix. I didn't watch that. I can't watch him. Oh, my gosh. And at one point, I'm like, okay, I need something even more depressing and disturbing. I'm going to turn on CNN.

And I thought, if I love politics, and if I'm fed up with this and don't want to watch it, it means literally no one's watching it. And it'll be interesting to see, but I think people are just exhausted by it. And then I heard that essentially the president intimated that former Representative Dingell, who has served in Congress for 59 years, was in World War II, that he might be looking up from hell at his wife. That's essentially what our president, you know, the man who's supposed to represent the decency and the courage and the integrity of what is the greatest, you know, the greatest democracy in history, that's how he chose to frame Representative Dingell.

It's just like, okay, literally, have we just, have we tried to figure out how do we lose all of our humanity for political purposes? It just is so— I don't know how they stick with this. I just don't. It's really like—it's now like, what is wrong with you people? You know, Mark Meadows is now leaving. I almost tweeted, don't let the door hit you on the way out. In fact, actually let it hit you on the way out.

Goodbye. Like, it's just the lows that they'll go to. And this kind of— it's indecent. It's indecent is what it is. But, you know, this is something we've said over and over again. But Debbie Dingell handed herself well, and she actually said, this is really hurtful. This is the first Christmas without him. They had such a fascinating, I know her a little bit, a fascinating relationship and really close. And she's a really smart legislator. I have to say, I've spent a lot of time talking to her, and I hope to have her on the podcast at some point. But just savvy, just super savvy, very close to Nancy Pelosi, by the way.

And it was just really like, what is wrong with you? And then the stupid people laughing at the thing. It's just like, it's just strange. It's just strange. I keep coming back to the thing that, again, I don't want to blame tech, but everybody feels like they can say whatever they want on some level to the point of, like, rudeness in a way that's really low. And it's really interesting. Do you see any impact of this on business at all? Or is business just not paying

attention? I think the impact, or I'm hoping the impact, and again, I might be just talking in my own book here, is I hope that America recognizes, people say we've become so polarized, and it doesn't help that the most profitable and largest and most impactful media companies in the world are fueled on rage and polarization. But I do believe the majority of Americans, whereas I think our leaders are more polarized than Americans are. I think that the largest voting group or the largest self-identified group in Florida is not Democrats or Republicans, it's independents. Independents. And I hope at some point people reach a tipping point and say, okay, should we consider rank

voting? Should we consider redrawing or trying to de-gerrymander? But if we don't get some more moderates in there, it just feels like this is headed somewhere pretty ugly. What was disappointing was someone who's actually a very tech-focused congressman who's leaving, Will Hurd, and I literally was like, did you just trade your soul for someone who has been a critic of Trump when he does things like this? Just literally, he wants something else.

He wants to run for what senator? I don't know what his next move is, but what a disappointment for him. Like, you know, an idiot like Jim whatever is Jim Jordan, J-Y-M Jordan, is one thing. But this guy is smart. He's been very savvy on tech. And I was going to have him on the podcast. I actually don't want to have him on the podcast. I was like, what is wrong with you?

Anyway, it's an interesting time for people. I think they're going to look back on it and sort of shake themselves like they did during the McCarthy era. But you asked what impact it will have on business. Trump is such a, you know, Trump creates so many dumpster fires that are more like, you know, nuclear mushroom clouds that it distracts you from the dumpster fires that are all over tech. I mean, the thing that kind of, the thing that sort of embodies the evolution of the gestalt of tech is at the beginning of the decade, we were talking about Facebook being a place where parents of children with rare diseases could get together and find treatments and cures, right? That was what tech started out with. And where it's ending the decade is there are a group of trolls who are using the National Epilepsy Foundation hashtag to identify people who likely have epilepsy. Oh, and then send those. And then tweeting them GIFs with photosynthesis-sensitive imagery, basically blinking lights, hoping

to inspire an epileptic seizure. So that, to me, kind of embodies the evolution of big tech over the last 10 years. But essentially, Trump and his obsession with being—I think he'd actually rather be impeached than be out of the media cycle. I think that he wants it all to be about him. rather be impeached than be out of the media cycle. I think that he wants it all to be about him. So, to a certain extent, the delay and obfuscation of monopoly power, of abuse of the commonwealth, of teen depression is all sort of put in the backseat, if you will, or wallpapered over by all of this crazy news that I'm not sure it has a lot of long-term impact on the country.

We'll see. I don't know if the immun long-term impact on the country. We'll see. I don't know if the immunities are going to finally kick in. We'll find out in the next election. But it's not good for us because, meanwhile, these platforms continue to be weaponized. So what does it mean for business? It means the bad actors in business continue to be bad actors because we don't have time. Speaking of which, Peter Thiel, a story in The Wall Street Journal, is apparently one of the forces keeping Facebook from fact-checking political ads. The billionaire investor and Donald Trump backer is one of the forces at Facebook.

He's on the board pushing the company not to fact-check political ads. And he's convinced Mark Zuckerberg, who controls the board, he's co-founded the company Palantir, which has been found to be working with ICE. Apparently, several people on the board want to push back, but Peter has a holdover mark on this issue around political ads. And of course, it would be in his interest to do so as a supporter of Trump. And Facebook has been holding out on this issue. I got to tell you, there's got to be some crack in that wall over there at Facebook where people are like, I cannot do this. This is just untenable, the way we're conducting our political ads. But there isn't. There isn't because he's got this thing. So,

you know, Thiel is a fascinating character, obviously, but certainly is the one person who's had the most impact here at Facebook, I think. Have you interviewed Peter Thiel? Yes. And what's your, I just, he's one guy, it's, you know, as an instinct, we like to immediately, for safety or friend reasons, we immediately have an instinct to go, oh, they're one of us. I can trust this person. Or they're an enemy, and I have to keep my eye on them. That's his basic instinct. And with a guy like Teal, with a guy like Teal, I just can't even begin to figure out that guy.

He just strikes me as such a complex, unusual person. Do you have any sense for what drives or motivates him? We haven't talked in a long time. I've been—he's an interesting character because he's quite brilliant. And read his book sometime. I think it's well worth your time. Zero to One is a wonderful book. But here's the deal.

He had, you know, the history of saying some things in college that were really awful, including he happens to be gay. And obviously had some issues with that because of Gawker. He did that lawsuit. My issue with him is that he did it secretly and then revealed himself when he won, that kind of stuff. He sort of mounts legal challenges to journalists, which I think has always been an issue, especially when Facebook's supposed to be supportive of publishers. You know, he said some things about women that are problematic. And he, I'm saying that in a nice way. And at the same time, he's quite an interesting thinker about a lot of things. He's not like, his move towards Trump is a strangest, but makes total sense when

you sort of think about his worldview of this idea of the government doesn't work. We don't, we need to like destroy everything, really. And he has that mentality. We had a really interesting talk. I haven't talked to him in a long time, but there's a video online from 10 or 15 years ago where I went to visit him. And we argued about social media and all kinds of stuff. You can see his intellect when we're going back and forth. And after we had, which it was not off the record, this discussion about gay rights, which was really – you know, he was like, nobody needs special rights.

I'm like, I just don't want my kids taken away from me. I want equal rights. And so we had this really interesting discussion. And I can't – he's of a type of conservative strain of gay men. I don't know how else to put it. Like they just – there's a whole lot of them like that. It doesn't matter if you're gay or not. You can be conservative.

But it's unusual. It's more unusual to find ultra-conservative gay men. But it isn't actually. And so, you know, he's just a really complicated character. But he clearly has impact at Facebook that is over and above other board members, it feels like. But, you know, we'll see what happens with these political ads, but so far, they're going to stand pat. There's a couple dynamics at play here. So, Peter Thiel supposedly is saying, look, under the auspices of, you know, libertarian values or free speech that Facebook should be able to post these political ads,

even if they're false, and that's part of discourse, and then people have a responsibility or a right to discern who's lying and then judge them for lying or not lying. But at the same time, this is the guy that when a media publication outed him, said, okay, I'm going to serve these guys a cold lunch someday, and then funded, him, said, okay, I'm going to serve these guys a cold lunch someday, and then funded, I think with $10 or $20 million of his own money, a nuisance lawsuit against Gawker that effectively put them—it did put them out of business. And at the time, I was kind of a fan of it because Gawker had done some really horrible things.

But there was a lot of Gawker, not Gawker. There was a lot of the site that wasn't – you know what I mean? There was a lot of great stuff on this. Anyway, but go ahead. I agree. I mean, they were outing people who were not celebrities. This wasn't news just for the purposes of outing them. And that was – I thought that was – anyways.

But this is the same guy who's decided who is now defending free speech. It just seems very inconsistent to me. who is now defending free speech. It just seems very inconsistent to me. And the opportunity is basically anyone who comes across, anyone who has any sort of reputation for being balanced and thoughtful eventually leaves the board. There's been some very impressive people who have gone on this board, and what they all have in common is they all leave under the cover of dark.

They're like, okay, I am just not down with this. I have no power. I don't like what's going on. And they leave. And the guy on the board, and I'm sure there's more than one, or I'd like to think there's more than one with a lot of integrity. But Ken Chenal, the former CEO of American Express, who just reeks of integrity and character and intellect, is on that board. And it's pretty clear that no individual has the ability to influence Mark Zuckerberg other than anything how he gets an additional billion. And the way that Ken Chenault could really have an impact is if after being on the board for about 12 months, in my view, if he doesn't like what is going on, is to publicly resign for that board and discuss what in fact is bothering him. Assuming there are things that are bothering him. But based on everything I know about him, for him to—he has an opportunity here

to be either, you know, effective, and if he's not effective, to leave. And rather than doing what all the rest of them do, whether it's Hastings or Bowles or Desmond, coming up with an excuse and just leaving. But he could be a critical player in this. Well, we'll see. You know, we'll see. I'm sort of surprised that Charles Amber is saying nothing about that. Or maybe she's doing it, but she's a very behind-the-scenes kind of person, but she obviously isn't.

I would imagine she would be on the less let's keep the lies going. When he said a lot of that stuff about free speech, especially the parts about the community and everyone, you know, people should figure it out themselves, I should have realized it was vintage Peter. Like, it was Peter who was very smart, shuttled through someone who doesn't have quite the same kind of intellect. You know what I mean? doesn't have quite the same kind of intellect. You know what I mean? Like in terms of Peter's quite clever in many, many ways and is really interesting to talk to him because he's a good arguer and stuff like that. So a lot of this stuff is being filtered through Mark who does not—he's not stupid.

I'm not saying that. The kind of intellect Peter has is quite, you know, well-educated. He's an exceptional brain. He's an exceptional brain. He's an intellectual brain. And so, you know, Mark's obviously a computer brain. But anyway, it's interesting to see what impact he has and if it continues. And if Mark, at any point, you know, it seems like Mark is being, not manipulated, he's being molded by Peter. And since the beginning, I think since the very beginning of Facebook, he has been, he's been a real influence on him.

And so it's question is if anyone else can have influence and shift his mentality and open his worldview up a little further. Meanwhile, Facebook's at 200 bucks, the business. I don't even know when they report earnings. I'm telling you, Kara, I did something for the first time. I actually don't do a lot of online shopping. I purchased something for the first time off of Instagram. I cannot get over how incredibly strong and well done the ads on Instagram are.

You are going to see- I love them. I love them. Unbelievable. And it's like creepy. You know, relevance is synonymous with creepy. What did you buy? What did you buy? I just bought a pair of cool tennis shoes. I was drunk e-commerce-ing. I had one or two drinks, 11, and I was sitting by the pool and going through my Instagram feed feeling bad about myself.

And then there was this cool pair of shoes that I've been looking at for a while, what I think are cool pair of shoes. And I clicked, okay, I clicked buy now. And of course, I ordered two pairs, but by accident, but I managed, first time I've ever bought anything off of Instagram. E-commerce moving down the funnel through Instagram. Instagram is about to become more worth more. Just what AWS is to Amazon, Instagram is about to become to Facebook. It's going to be worth more than the core platform because they're about to solve e-commerce. Terrific experience. 100%. Yeah.

100% terrific experience. Speaking of dumpster fires, I don't know if you read the Business Week cover story about SoftBank, our favorite investor. Crazy. about SoftBank, our favorite investor. Crazy. They wrote along when they had a picture of Merry Christmas from SoftBank, a picture of money being lit on fire like a Christmas fire. And it's a really tough piece on Masayoshi's son and what they were doing.

And not just that they make stupid investments or like throwing money around, speaking of drunken e-commerce. Yeah. But this is the key paragraph. And vision funds' problems don't stop with some bad bets. Current and former employees of the fund and SoftBank describe an environment of sycophancy towards Sun, political rivalries, harassment, compliance issues, and an abnormally high tolerance for risk, all wrapped in a casing of general weirdness. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

It's good. The best craft ever. That is my favorite.. It's good to hear. Not crap ever. That is my favorite. You like that? You love that? I do. All wrapped in a casing of general weirdness. Like, it was, it's, they wanted to say what the fuck, but they're, this is what they did.

And, you know, it's essentially Sun, you know, doing his weird futuristic stuff. I know him pretty well and he does do, we've had him at Code and stuff, but it's really interesting that, you know, people are really, as we've had him at Code and stuff. But it's really interesting that people are really—as we said, they were going to start taking aim at SoftBank, not just their investments. So I don't know where it's going to end up, because they're getting funded by rich, suspect people. But anyway, so it's worth a read. And it continues. SoftBank, the destruction of capital is, I think, going to continue. Oh, no doubt. There's this effect. I'm fascinated by SoftBank and Masayoshi Sano, what's going on there. And there's this effect called the Dunning-Kruger effect,

which basically states that stupid people are too dumb to know how stupid they are. And so, when they're faced with complex situations, they approach them with confidence instead of caution. And this is Masayoshi Son is the Dunning-Kruger effect come to life in the information age because he made the greatest investment in venture history, put $20 million into Alibaba, turned into $100 billion, and now thinks that his gut is the way to get... Well, he did it before.

He lost his money, and then he got it back. He had a first fortune, and then this was his second fortune. Yeah. And then the guy running it for him was arguably—he ran Deutsche Bank's credit group, which is arguably will be the go-down as the second largest incinerator of capital in history after SoftBank will be number one. But, you know, and I suffer a little bit from this. I understand a decent amount about marketing. So all of a sudden I think, oh, that means I should opine on any subject.

And it's difficult to have humility across different sectors. And I know a lot of PE guys who go into venture capital because they think, oh, I must be a great venture capitalist. And this literally, SoftBank is the Dunning-Kruger effect come to life. And that is a group of people who have recognized moments of success or success in other industries who believe it translates into other areas. And the market is just, the market has this incredible attribute of regression to the mean. And you are seeing the world's largest regression to the mean or dose of humility. But SoftBank is going to go down.

SoftBank could be the defining business moment of the decade. And I know we're going to talk about in our next episode what's happened over the last decade, but you are seeing a level. I love this saying, and I got it from the Twitter handle, God. I don't know if you follow God on Twitter, but it's fantastic. I don't know who it is, but this guy or gal is a genius. But it has something really impactful that I think of a lot. And it says that, you know, ignorance looks in the mirror and it sees intelligence. Intelligence looks in the mirror and it sees ignorance. When SoftBank looks in the mirror, it sees intelligence. And they are suffering from so much ignorance. Well, it also, it's one person. Again,

it's these one person things where they they just put up with this stuff. And one of the things that they had him saying was, but the real strategy behind the Vision Fund seems to involve another MASA principle. Big money means big strategic advantages. The idea that festooning entrepreneurs with hundreds of millions of dollars and urging them to spend at exorbitant pace will scare off competitors and allow the Vision Fund to mint behemoths. No one wants to pick a fight with the crazy guy, he told Bloomberg Businessweek last year. Oh, my God. Yeah, well, they are. I'll give them that. There is something to being crazy that scares people in terms of legal, but when he says crazy, it's not, people do want to pick a fight with the really stupid guy. And that, it's not that they're crazy. It's just that they're plain stupid. I mean, at some point, stupidity becomes crazy, but some of these investments, even funding companies.

So, capital is a strategy. Let's throw so much capital at something that it creates moats and pulls away from the competition. But the majority of returns in venture have been companies that have found amazing investments where they put $3 or $5 million in initially, as Sequoia and Kleiner did in Google, and then managed to maintain pro rata follow-on rights and get huge IRRs. The notion that you can get venture-like returns when you're allocating billions, there are only so many companies that grow up to be a $100 billion firm. So it just mathematically doesn't make any sense. And then they go on to decide, all right, we're going to massively overfund not only companies, but companies in the same sector. So it's like the snake eating its own tail.

They have companies putting each other out of business and destroying the capital of the same investor. They have Uber Eats going after DoorDash. It just doesn't – makes no sense. Do you know Zoom Pizza? They invested $375 million in missions to use robots to automate pizza. But they're going to change food production. And, like, it's – they haven't. They haven't.

They just – it's crazy. It's interesting. Look, I like people who swing from the fences. I don't mind. Like, it's his money. And by the way, he's using—what's really interesting to me is his lack of moral clarity here and taking all this money from MBS in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, the murderous head of Saudi Arabia, and taking their money and having no compunction about it, given the behavior of the Saudis. And so, as I said, on one hand, I'm thrilled they're losing all their money. But on the other hand, it's kind of, like, gross. It's gross. To me, that's the—I don't care if he's a crazy person who yells at people or he says

crazy things and tells them to do wacky stuff. Whatever. You know, but that, to me, is really the problem I have with it. Kara, I need your help, and I want ideally our viewers to weigh in on Twitter or via email. But I'm either going to produce a Broadway show or write a book, and I'm serious about this because I'm at the point in life where I'm eccentric and I have a little bit of money, which spells Broadway, Kara. It spells Broadway.

But I'm not rich enough to produce movies, but I am wealthy enough to produce a Broadway show. I am going to put you in touch with Randy Zuckerberg, sister of Mark Zuckerberg. She did Oklahoma and Hadestown. She's actually doing rather well. Mark Zuckerberg co-producing a Broadway show with Mark Zuckerberg's sister. That is so many mixed emotions. I don't know how to respond to that. You know what?

We're going to go see Oklahoma, and we're going to go out for drinks with her. She's quite a piece of work. Stay focused. Another hollow promise of good times for your spouse. I'm just saying, she might fund your soft-bind musical. Here comes the rabbit coat. You're getting a rabbit coat, sweetie. She's great.

Anyway, back to me. She's great. I'm just telling you. You want a Broadway show? She's a very successful Broadway producer. I'm trying to help you with your dream. I am writing a book. I've got about half of it done.

I don't like to announce it because then I feel as if I actually have to write the book. What's it called? Kara? I love Kara Swisher. Well, here's the thing. I need help. I'm down to two titles. It's either going to be called Unicorn Feces or Unicorn Porn.

I'm serious. Oh, neither. Neither. Neither? Not the first. Don't use feces in a title. Just don't. Unicorn Feces.

You don't think that's pretty good? So you like Unicorn Porn better? You don't like either. I don't. Unicorn porn. You don't think that's pretty good? So you like unicorn porn better? You don't like either. I don't like either of them. I don't like either. You need to be more supportive of me. I don't like either. I'm being, you know what? Tough love, baby. Alright, listen. We need to take a quick break. We'll be right back with wins,

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Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. All right, we're back. Wins and fails, Scott. So many fails. Here's a win. I'll do my win. You know, last week I had that FedEx breakdown because they messed up my thing and it cost me hundreds of dollars to get something that they just— Anyway, Amazon is barring third-party sellers from using FedEx Ground for Prime deliveries because they said, we have seen a drop in delivery performance of FedEx Ground and FedEx Home ship methods for seller-fulfilled Prime shipments. I—listen, Amazon's—it's like backing, like, Darth Vader over Palpatine, but I'm going with it.

You're going with Amazon? You're going with Anakin Skywalker? Yeah, whatever. So that's a really – I mean, that's a great example. That's my win. And you – my blog post today is on FedEx. Yeah. You brought this up or inspired me to start looking into this.

FedEx, in a word, and this is an academic term, is just fucked. Because effectively, if you look at – there's this interesting dynamic in technology where – and it's mostly – it started in software where every software startup, and I'm on the board of a few of them, worries that someday they're going to wake up and they're going to find that Oracle or Adobe has turned their product and made it into a feature and bundle it. Similar, make it free and basically put them out of business overnight. But they just turn it into a feature of their own suite of offerings, similar to what kind of Microsoft did where it said Internet Explorer is free and bundled with Office. And basically put Netscape, the fastest-growing company in history, to that point out of business within effectively like 12 to 18 months. But it's now starting to happen, and I don't know what the term is, featured. You've been featured across some incredibly large, impressive companies.

And essentially FedEx is being featured by Amazon, and that is shipping and fulfillment and logistics are now becoming break-even businesses for Amazon that they feature as part of Prime. And FedEx had, literally threw up on themselves in their most recent earnings report. And they tried to employ this crazy delay or obfuscation to say it had something to do with air freight. No, it has everything to do with the fact that I cannot get over this holiday season. I've been running around my neighborhood taking pictures. There are Amazon vans everywhere.

Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. And they're coming after Kara Swisher, who's fed up with FedEx. They're coming after Kara Swisher with delivery that can run a break-even or a loss that FedEx investors will not tolerate. And they're coming after Kara Swisher with delivery that can run a break-even or a loss that FedEx investors will not tolerate. And they're coming after – I mean, there's – I think this is FedEx's fault.

They haven't kept up. They haven't – Fred Smith, like – Fair enough. Just, you know, he was an innovator, and now he's going to let himself get lazy. He's 76. Lazy. Whatever. I know that's ageist.

I'm not sure 76-year-olds are running FedEx. He's so aggressive. It's like, if you want to be aggressive, like bring the juice, my friend. That's what I say. Yeah. You know, their corporate office had called me, and I haven't called them back. I'm not calling them back. That'll show them.

I'm not. I'm not being like you. You know how you don't call people back when they're mad at you? I'm not calling them back. I'm sick of old white guys. I'm investing in the young and the possible instead of the old and the powerful. I've had it. I'm done.

Oh, have you? Yeah. You're a man of the people, Scott Galloway. There you go. All right. That is my win. I'm going with Darth Vader over Palpatine. All right. Speaking of Palpatine, I think the fail seems to be the Star Wars. My fail is the Star Wars movie. I have not seen it. I may see it tonight. My ex rented an entire theater and is taking people to see it. Speaking of women are the people, that means you're seeing it early. Doesn't it come out the 26th? I have no idea what she's up to. She's got context. It'll be awesome. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. It's just awesome. It's just

going to be awesome. That's a franchise. I read all the spoilers. I know exactly what's going to happen. Really? I did in advance. I don't want to be surprised. Don't say anything. I did. I'm not going to say them, but I did. And by the way, I'm going to see Cats. That's the other thing. That's a win to me. It got pretty, someone, my favorite tweet was that this person was like, I went to see it. I don't even know what just happened to me, but I feel good about it. So I want to see, I think Cats looks great. I'm going to go see Cats. That's my win. That's my other, that's my fail win. So what is yours? What are yours? Well, my fail was FedEx, but my win is Adam Schiff.

I think Adam Schiff, I know this is going to surprise you, Cara, but in high school, I wasn't what you would call enormously cool, which I know comes as a surprise to everybody. And I think Adam Schiff, or Representative Schiff, is sort of an inspiration to young men and women who want intellect and perseverance. And, you know, Trump has baited him so many times with these insults about his looks. And the guy has just decided, you know how I'm going to win? With perseverance and intellect. And the guy does his homework. And I feel like there are a ton of 16- and 17-year-old people in math club that are 6'1", 128 pounds with bad acne, as was Scott Galloway at 17. And I think he's a great role model, whereas I think the president is a terrible role model for young men.

I think Adam Schiff is a great role model for young men and young women. Anyways, my win is representative Adam Schiff. I will point you to a podcast I did with him recently. I'm going to do another one. We're going to return after this is all over. He promised a second one. But he's great. He's really great.

He's super smart. My brother actually went to college with him and said he was super smart then. What a shocker. What a shocker. Really? He did have long hair riding a skateboard and smoking crack? No, it was Stanford. They were at Stanford, which I didn't get into.

And you did see that—I don't know if it's a win or a fail—that a federal judge ruled that proceeds from Edwards—you'd be happy about this—Edwards Snowden's memoir, Permanent Record, which we talked about, which I did a podcast with him. So a federal judge ruled that proceeds from Edwards Snowden's memoir, Permanent Record, would be paid to the U.S. government because he violated the terms of his employment contract with the U.S. government in publishing the book. Well, you clearly don't follow me on Twitter. You're going to love this. I wrote real quickly on Twitter. There's so many—I think I did. Someone summarized Twitter perfectly, that as you— Espionage does not pay. I know what you're saying. I wrote espionage is a bitch, and I know you don't like it when I use that word. And so many people weighed in against me, and it's inspired me, and as have you, to learn more about Edward Snowden,

because a lot of people who, unless they're bots, and as far as I know, the Russian trolls trying to gain my trust, but who seem thoughtful, have weighed in and said, you got this wrong. Edward Snowden is a patriot. There's much more gray here. You could listen to my podcast. You could read the book.

I'm sending you the book. I am sending you the book. Anyways, I'm going to learn more about Edward Snowden. I'm going to. That's your Christmas present, the free book I got from Edward Snowden. Here we go again. Here we go again. And you're going to give it to me in intermission at Katz, right?

Anyway, so. You know what? I am going to. We're going out with Randy Zuckerberg. We're going to go see Oklahoma. Don't promise me anymore. I can't handle it. I literally can't handle it.

Randy. Randy, whom I know. Randy, we're coming to your show. All right, so Edward Snowden, you think he should not be paid, that the money should go to the U.S. government because he violated the terms of his employment contract. That's what you think. Well, I'm going to be more measured here. I need to learn more about Edward Snowden because a lot of people that I respect have said you've got it wrong on this one. So I'm going to try and learn more about how a guy decides to take state secrets, shove a thumb drive up his ass, and move to China and rush as a hero.

So I'm going to try and understand how that makes him a hero. But anyways. Anyways. And I'm sure he didn't give the Russians anything because they're such nice people. He took it out of a Rubik's Cube. There was no ass shoving with the thumb drive. I'm sorry. It was a Rubik's Cube that he took in and out.

So there you have it. Yeah. All right. We're going to finish up this episode with predictions. Predictions. Okay. Okay. Do you have any? Yeah, I do. So my prediction is that FedEx is acquired in 2020 or 21, that effectively you have an incredible company with incredible assets that's now been featured and is becoming part of the stack. And I think an interesting acquirer would be Walmart. But if Walmart, I think, so first off, FedEx is going to, its value is going to get cut in half. It's about to get worse for FedEx. And it was trading at a multiple that's what I'd call the innovator's multiple. And that is FedEx has always been an innovator. If you look at e-commerce, they've benefited from the surge in e-commerce and logistics. But it's about to not only see its

EBITDA drop, it's going to get incredible or into an incredible multiple contraction as people realize it's the next victim of Amazon. And it's the post office. It's the new post office. And it's got a 76-year-old CEO, so they need a succession strategy. And I think Doug McMillan offering full-stack fulfillment front-end e-commerce is a really compelling— Somebody's got to be the Yang to Amazon's Ying. Yes. Shopify, as we've discussed. Maybe Shopify buys it. Yeah, Shopify has no Walmart.

And Shopify doesn't have 5,500 distributions. You said Roku was going to get bought by Netflix. I'm going to hold you to these. This is really interesting. I don't know who Roku will be acquired by, but actually my prediction is Roku, if their value keeps growing, is going to be a man-bite stock and acquire an old economy or an old media company because they're becoming so valuable, or they'll be acquired. But something is going to happen with FedEx in the next 12 months. The first thing is its value is going to decline, and they're either going to need to go out and make a bet-the-ranch acquisition or they will be acquired. And I think the interesting one would be Walmart.

Walmart. I got to talk to Doug McMillan. I'm going to call him after this. He's going to come to—I might get him to come to Code. I've got another big name for Code. I can't announce it yet. Really? I can't announce Sundar this week. We have another one. Anyway, but before we go, Scott, that's a great prediction. That's a really smart one. Before we go, let's shout out to some of our listener mail we got this week. Joe writes, there can never be too much pivot.

You are a shining light in the media sewage I constantly have to shift through. Thank you. Or a light in the sewage. Thank you for that. Scott. We are a light. By the way, do you know we hit number one in a country? We are the number one podcast this week.

Where? This week. What country? In Argentina. That's right. Talk about an awesome country. The tango, beef, and fly-fitching in the Bariloche. We should go there.

Argentina is awesome. Let's promise to go there and then let people down. All right. Next, from a self-identified 54-year-old fully degreed woman in Flyover Country, she says, love it, got to have it two times a week. That's right. That's right, my friend. That's right, Flyover Country. We like you, too.

We may come there. Probably not, but we will. No, we like Flyover Country. Do we like Flyover Country? Of course we do. We fly over it. We're women of the people. You see cats and I'm, you know.

We're cats. We're about the least people. You see cats, and I'm, you know. We're cats. We're about the least. You're coming with me to see cats. We literally, we're about the least flyover people you have ever met. You were going to run for mayor of San Francisco, and I'm literally in Soho teaching at NYU. I'm running my mouth. Listen, this is the last one, and then you have to read the negative ones. From a Londoner, you ask what it's like having pivot twice a week.

It's like having those guilty pleasures you shouldn't do twice in a row. It's overwhelming and awesome all at once. Scott, read the negative ones. We have to do that. But, but, here are the negative ones. Mike writes, with two episodes, I can't believe that I'm saying this, but it's too much. Well, you know what? Okay, Mike.

You know what too much of a good thing is? It's cocaine, Mike. You're insulting cocaine. Anyways. We want to hear from you if you think there's too, Mike. You're insulting cocaine. Anyways. We want to hear from you if you think there's too, if it's too much. I don't,

we don't think it's too much. We're enjoying ourselves. And we, one of the things that I loved is someone, Michael Kreider, wrote today, I'll read this one too.

The problem that I have two shows a week is now they crowd out other podcasts I'd like to listen to. Goodbye, at How I Built This. Oh my God,

by speaking of two minutes, like crowding out other podcasts, you know what has jumped the shark? Did you listen to the Daily today about impeachment? Jesus Christ, was that boring. Michael Barbaro, start doing drugs. Do something. The Daily is getting so boring. I know you work for them.

Oh, my God. That was awesome. I'm getting—I'm literally—the Daily, you better step it up. You better step it up. You better step it up. We're coming for you. We're coming for everybody. That's what we're doing. We've become a megalomaniacal pair.

Anyway, it's time for us to go. Wait by the door for your Peloton to come. I'm sure it'll get there for me. I'm sure that'll happen for you. Along with a wig and a bottle of Cialis. Is that a hint? Is that a hint? We're going to be back next Friday for the Decade in Review show.

We'll be hearing a lot of special guests. We have special guests. Meanwhile, you can reach us at hashtag pivotpodcast or emailing us at pivot at voxmedia.com. Scott, let's get on to the Decade show. We'll have that next week and then have a beautiful, beautiful holiday season. It is going to be nice. All right, Kara, I'm excited. I'm excited to end the decade with my Pivot co-host.

Co-host, yeah, you do. I can't wait to see what you get me for Christmas. Anyway, today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Eric Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, and if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever

you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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