Pivot - Listeners Sound Off on Spotify, Big Tech's Winners & Losers, and CNN’s Jeff Zucker is Out

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

Kara and Scott go through your responses on Spotify’s Joe Rogan controversy. Then, they unpack the Big Tech winners and losers of earnings week. Also, Jeff Zucker is out at CNN. Plus, a prediction on what’s to come for Metaverse real estate. Send us your Listener Mail questions, via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And New York Times, Vox, and Warner Media policies mandate that I disclose that I'm

in a consensual relationship with Kara Swisher and Michael Smirconish. There, I've said it. I've said it. It's like a 10-ton brick has been lifted from our shoulders, Kara. Oh, my God. We're not in a consensual—although I did stay at your apartment last night in New York. I went late there at a New York Times dinner, and I missed my flight, and I took a train back this morning, but I appreciate the use of your apartment in New York.

I heard you have lots of people. When I got there, for people to know, on the counter, there was a bottle of champagne, a candle, and a jug of water, and I don't know what was going on. I was sort of sitting there like, huh, huh. And you asked me who left it and I literally had this honest response. I have no idea. I didn't know what it meant. When people find out you have a place in New York

that doesn't get a lot of use and there's a doorman who's just used to letting anybody up. Yeah, he seemed to. Every time I walk in, I warned you. I said, there might be strangers there. I don't know their names

or why they're there. So I didn't, that's why I didn't go in one of the bedrooms. So anyway, who knows if someone was there. That's where I keep my dead prostitutes. That's the dead prostitute storage.

Anyway, it was very nice. It saved my life. I was so tired, and I had no way of getting up because, interestingly, Amtrak has stopped doing trains after 8 o'clock. That's not that interesting. It is interesting. There's a lot of stuff going on that's much more interesting than that. But public infrastructure doesn't suit your schedule?

No, it doesn't. Let me just tell you. Well, you needed to get to D.C. to go shopping for houses in Colorado with Nancy Pelosi? No, no, no. I needed to get back for this podcast. In any case, I'll be down in your neck of the woods very soon for Pivot MIA. We have lots going to happen there. We have FinTech Talk with David Solomon, who's head of Goldman Sachs.

We debate the future of work with Sandeep Mathurani, who's the head of WeWork. We work. We examine the shifting landscape of media with the Smith brothers, Justin Smith and Ben Smith. Ben just left The Times and Justin just left Bloomberg. We chat with Brian Chesky. CEO of your boss's boss? I don't know. I don't have a boss.

CEO of New York Times? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I'm getting to her. Yeah, the CEO of- New York Times. Of the New York Times, who's terrific, actually. She just got the job.

She's been second in command for a long time. Chat with Brian Chesky about the metaverse and travel. We're going to need travel. CEO of Airbnb. Airbnb. Kathy Savitt. A nice young man, too. He is, indeed.

We'll talk about— Literally every grandmother's favorite grandson. Can you imagine being the other sibling in that family? Seriously? Oh, I'm Brian's brother, and my parents hate me. Sister, and she's lovely. Kathy Savitt will be there to discuss the world of supersonic

transportation. President of Boom! Supersonic travel, Kara. And your friend Aswath will be there, and he's a friend of Kevin. My idol. He's an idol. He's going to talk about cryptocurrencies, etc. We also, and I don't, have we announced this yet? Should we announce it here? Let's do it. Let's do it. It's consensual. Announce it. We're talking to Carolyn Spiegel.

She's actually the sister of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, and she's launched Quinn Audio, which is audio porn, which is really interesting, and it's doing pretty well. Yeah, it is a neat story. Yeah, it's an interesting story. It's geared towards women. I guess it's erotica, and Scott, of course, has an account. In any case, we have the mayor of Miami-Dade. We have all kinds of stuff happening. We've got a lot going on there.

Got a lot. The party Tuesday night is what Daddy has curated. You bring in a CEO, Airbnb, Goldman, blah, blah. Daddy curated the party Tuesday night. Party, did you? I have nothing to do with it. And so I'm really- You know what?

It's modeled after my fraternity parties where we did these golf things where you go to each room for a different drink. We're starting outside on the beach. Then we're moving to the living room, that hot, fancy pants DJ place. And then we're going underground to their speakeasy, the Saxony. I need my eight hours of sleep if I'm going to be good on Tuesday. In any case, I'm also going to visit. We're having the CEO of Magic Leap.

We have all kinds of things happening. I've got to go visit Magic Leap that afternoon. We're doing all kinds of very exciting. Yeah, you invited me. Hard pass. You did. I can't believe you're not going. Oh, my God.

Anyway, I will do the actual reporting work while you figure out the drinks on the beach. We have two drinks in our name. We have two drinks in our name. We're not going to tell you what they are. Mine is non-alcoholic, and Scott's is obviously alcoholic. Mine is edibles. Double alcoholic. Anyway, so please come down to Miami. We still have tickets, and it's really exciting. It's our first event.

It might die with a rum floater. All right. No, it's not. You can take the boy out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the boy. Let's get to the show. Today on the show, we're going to talk about Meta's stock getting crushed, Jeff Zucker's departure from CNN, which was awkward. And an incredible quarter for the search giant named Google. You may have heard of them.

But first, we asked our listeners for their thoughts on Spotify, Joe Rogan, and what we should do. Actually, Roxanne Gay wrote a great essay about what she did. Fantastic. Wow, she can write. Same thing that I push you to read in the New York Times. We got so much response. We got emails. We got tweets.

We got voice messages. We're going to open up that mailbag. But first, tell us, how are you feeling about this now that it's been a couple days? Look, I'm a narcissist, so I immediately move everything to me. But I spent all weekend thinking about how to frame this and really thinking it through and whether I was engaging in censorship. And I called all these people that I think are incredibly thoughtful and smart, including you, to get feedback and decided I was going to take Prop G down from Spotify and was waiting for this huge blowback. And I got probably 100 or 150 emails, calls, whatever, and about 10 or 20 of them were exceptionally supportive. This is great. Respect you.

Living up to your – the music matches the words. I had a few famous comedians that are fairly, obviously fairly close with Joe Rogan come after me on Twitter, which was like, and they were pretty vicious, but, you know, they're comedians, fine. But easily 80% of the emails I got in communication was some form of, you don't know who Joni Mitchell is? Literally, people are like doing interventions.

They're sending me her soundtracks. It's horrifying, but go ahead. Well, Kara, help me. I'm falling back in love again. But you were going to start listening to her, right? Okay, I got to be honest. If it wasn't on KROQ, you know, Rock of the 80s from 1980 to 1987, I just don't give a shit. It's like after two drinks.

Journey. You know Journey, but not Joanie. Okay. Journey. No, Journey is KLOS or KMET. Get your 80s music stations down, Kara. This is important stuff. I mean, come on.

R.E.M., English Beat, The Clash. I mean, Tears for Fears. Come on. Anyways, that on. R.E.M., English beat, The Clash. I mean, Tears for Fears. Come on. Anyways, that shit's genius. But look, and by the way, my musical taste, it's like alcohol or people after two drinks. I don't care what you put in my glass or put in front of me. The answer is yes. You and I are going to have a moment on the beach where we're going to sit and hold hands and listen to Joni Mitchell and cry.

I'd like that. That'd be really nice. But anyways, I listened to some Joni Mitchell. That'd be nice. Go ahead. And just because I'm in the mood to get canceled today, I got'd be really nice. But anyways, I listen to some Joni Mitchell. It'd be nice. Go ahead. And just because I'm in the mood to get canceled today, I got to be honest with you, Cara, after listening to a lot of it.

Oh, no. And I also want to highlight that Rolling Stone called her one of the most important songwriters of the 20th century. Yes, she is. I listen to the music, and it sounds like the music you listen to after you've had a uterus for 30 years

and you were forced to sign an NDA. I mean, let's be honest. Let's be honest. Let's be honest. You have so much favor in your face. Too much? Yeah, I would say so. Too much? Kara has her hands over her face right now.

Oh, God, Jesus, Louisa. Okay. Tell me if there's a little, if there's a grain of truth in that. No, there's no grain. She's a poet. She's an American poet. No, she's wonderful.

She's, oh, God, I can't even. Everyone that falls from her. Jeff Bukas called me and God, I can't even, everyone that falls from her. Jeff Bukas called me and said, I can't believe you don't know who Joni Mitchell is. And you started sending me songs. He's like, you got to listen to her. People have literally done a Joni Mitchell intervention on me. Just Big Yellow Taxi alone and A Case of You and River. All of it. It's all brilliant. She's really good. Oh my God. I don't even want to speak to you. I'm not speaking to you. You are insufferable. You are an insufferable numbskull. Oh, my God. I don't even want to speak to you. I'm not speaking to you. You are insufferable. You are an insufferable numbskull. Wait, is that right? No. What is it?

Insufferable numbskull? Yeah, insufferable numbskull. I am on Team Musk on this one. Go ahead. Let me hear some of the tweets, then we're going to listen. Better late to the Joni party than never, Scott. Dip your toe with, quote, court and spark from Joshua Thomas. We're going to take away his honorary Canadian status from Pamela Smith. That just, oh, from Micah Mann, that just broke my heart into pieces. I thought he was so much wiser and worldly. Also some, she's, I did read up on her. She's a very impressive person. Do you know she was basically left broke pregnant? She wrote some wonderful – and I think she had to give up her child for adoption.

And she wrote – some of the lyrics she wrote are just rip your heart out. She's a poet. Thank you. She really is a poet. She's a beautiful songwriter. I do have a newfound appreciation for her. And yet you insult her. Let's be honest.

Let's smoke cigarettes and talk about people ghosting us. Anyway, let's listen to some people talking about this thing you've got you've got i can't believe i'm gonna be a mailman you've got mail hi karen scott this is ollie in san francisco but from the uk i think one of the magic things about podcasts is that it's really up to the host to have who they choose and then it's up to the listener to subscribe it's not being algorithmically pushed to them like content is on Instagram, for example. So I think that's really important differentiation in this kind of debate. Hi, Scott and Kara.

Anthony Hipp here and wanted to agree with you 100% that if you are an influencer with millions of followers, you have a moral responsibility to at least try to tell the truth or at least when you say something, know that there's some facts behind it. So great episode. Thank you. Yeah, this was very typical. People seem to like our debate and they like the confusion.

I think that was important that they liked us being confused about the issue, which is confusing. I was thinking about this. I was running the train drive from New York. The inability for complexity with people or just I had this, you know, you're this, you're that, and not be surprised. X or Y.

Zero or one. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's complex. It's like, there's lots of things. Like, we're not going to be perfect. If you want to get off Spotify, of course we have issues with Facebook and you still have to advertise. You have this.

It's just, it's much more, people have lost all nuance in this world. And this was something that I think was an important thing to talk about and express our confusion about. What about you? Look, I think it's an important dialogue. I thought Roxane Gay summarized so perfectly what I was struggling with over the weekend, and that is, when you start applying, What I was struggling with over the weekend in that is, you know, when you start applying, it's impossible to be morally pure. In a capitalist society, when you want to take care of your family, you just end up making all sorts of – if you're looking for moral clarity, you're not going to find it in my life. But that doesn't excuse you if you're blessed with – you know, at the end of the day, I thought – for me, it's more about decision-making. And I'm writing a post about it because I think young men – actually, everyone needs – but I understand I think young men better than young women.

But I think everybody needs a code around a set of principles. A lot of people get it from religion. A lot of people get it from modeling their parents, whatever it might be. And I think about capitalism. I think about stoicism, and I think about atheism. And capitalism is money and purchases and making money and providing economic security for other people in your family is a wonderful thing. And it shouldn't be looked at as evil and you can have real influence through their time, treasure, and talent. Stoicism, try and control what you can't control. Try to not have an emotional reaction.

It's easier to be clever than kind. Control the things you can. And then the thing that ultimately influenced my decision-making around this is atheism. And that is a recognition that the end is going to come and you will look into the eyes of people you care about and that's it. Know your relationship is coming to an end. I thought about how will I feel about this decision? And I think a lot about the work that my colleague Adam Alter did around palliative care and people at the end of their lives. And they absolutely, their regrets aren't a function of the fallout from the mistakes they've made.

The regrets are around the risks they didn't take. The regrets are they wish they'd been bolder with their heart. They wish they'd lived the life that they wanted to lead regardless of who had offended. And I like that. And if you're blessed with economic security and kids who kind of like mostly love you all the time, you're in a wonderful position to live your – try and live your values, to try and live your values. And the other thing that really upset me is no one seems to give a shit. Well, you know – No, but it was a small little gesture.

Everyone's like, Mary Hart. Mary Hart took her podcast off of – no, Mary Trump took her podcast off of Spotify. Yeah, that's right. No one really gave a shit. No one cares. These small gestures are critically important. You know, it's interesting. I spent the day with my son yesterday in New York, who I do – he's such a love.

And we talked about it. It was interesting. He agreed with what you did. He thought it was great. And also, you know, he's not, he doesn't really listen to Joe Rogan or anything like that, but he was supportive. He thought it was a good thing.

Although, again, he said, it probably doesn't matter, does it, Mom? And I'm like, probably not. But we make these- Probably doesn't. I said, you know what, Louis, life is full of small gestures that don't matter, but matter kind of thing.

And so we had a very lovely mother-son, you know, very special afternoon. You know, it felt like one of those shows, those TV shows where we all did some learning. Anyway, we also got loads of email. We heard from people who have canceled their Spotify subscriptions. They cited Joe Rogan or Meagher Royalties, Spotify pays artists, or Daniel X Investment in military AI companies. A company, excuse me, one single company, but a lot of the meager royalties versus how much they pay podcasts. I saw a lot of tweets on that. Many of the people who advised us to leave Spotify wrote about their personal experiences

with COVID and masculinity. Julianne W. told us that her brother-in-law wants to be the strong young man Joe describes. He didn't get vaccinated and gave his parents COVID in their shared trailer. We heard from Ryan R., who's an alumni advisor to a fraternity. He writes, I often have to worry about how the behaviors and attitudes Rogan promotes will show up in the behavior within my chapter. That chapter now has a let-it-rip attitude toward COVID safety, and content like Rogan's absolutely influenced that decision. You know,

you talked about that, like that part, the manliness of it all. This is anecdotal evidence. I coach a lot of young men and I speak to their parents. And I've heard two times, we need to deprogram our son from Joe Rogan. And if you look, the New York Times just came back with this article looking at, we have in America the highest per capita death rate of the G7 nations. And then they looked at a bunch of other data. And it's like, well, why is our death rate the highest per thousand people, given that we have the supply chain around vaccines, we have the most advanced over-invested healthcare delivery system. And we got there first. How could this happen? And the other data that is anomalous that you would argue there's a correlation is two things. The first is we're at 65% vaccination, whereas

India, China, the UAE, Portugal, Spain, 90%. We're at 65. And the other thing is, and to be fair, just as the right has politicized vaccines, the left has politicized body image. We're also the most obese nation, and that has played a role here. Yeah, I got a lot of that. And the left doesn't want to talk about that because they're worried about it being conflated with body shaming. Yeah. about it being conflated with body shaming. And, you know, so on the right, incredible death, disease, and disability by trying to macho up and position masculinity and testosterone conflated with being anti-government and then this vaccine that they've attached to the government. And on

the left, we think that you're finding your truth. No, you're not. You're finding diabetes. And the government needs to do a better job of bringing it from 25,000 grocery stores and a quarter of a million fast food restaurants. They need to solve food deserts. They need to figure out a way to get young people exercising to get households in low-income areas the ability to at least have a basic level of nutrition. It is expensive to eat healthy. It is expensive. But we don't want to talk about that on the left. But anyways, back to Spotify. I just don't think there's any getting around it.

He's one point in a line, but this is a very dangerous line. He's a very influential person for young men especially. And some women and stuff like that. But he's very influential, and he needs to understand this. But it's sort of like know, it's sort of like, sometimes you can sound like, oh, that Elvis, what's he doing with his pelvis? You don't want to be that person. But in this case, it's not entertaining, some of it is. Some of it is. Some of it is very entertaining, some of it is not. That's the problem. See, I disagree there. I think he's incredibly entertaining.

Yes, that's the thing. He is. No, a lot of it is wonderful, actually, really funny. Can we just make one more point here? People say, well, there's nothing wrong with being on dissenters. I'm like, no, you're right. There's nothing wrong with that. The analogy I would use is if you were doing a program, if you decided to do a program in retirement and say, I have a lot of 40- and 50-year-olds who have saved some money and they want to know what to do with it. And you brought on Lizanne Sanders from Charles Schwab, who we're also having at the conference. You brought on Lynn Alden. They would likely say, you need a diversified portfolio. You want to invest in

good companies. You want to be low fees. And they would suggest a variety of techniques. And then the next day for balance, he went one-to-one. He had someone come on and say, the future is Dogecoin. Put everything in Dogecoin, and made a really interesting argument for the future of money and how the Fed has lost all credibility. People struggling with what to do with the retirement funds, if it's one-to-one, would go, you know, it's really a toss-up on whether I have a diversified portfolio of low-cost ETFs or I put everything into Dogecoin. And that is not a balanced, thoughtful argument. And the evidence shows you shouldn't do that, and you're going to cause potentially a lot of damage. So, it's this notion of false balance. He's equalizing. He's equalizing. Although, at the same time, I do

welcome that he has different things. Whenever I have someone who's not, people don't think of in my zone, I get like, how dare you give this person oxygen? I hate when people do that. I'll give oxygen to whoever I want, but I'm going to do a good job and the same job with everybody. And so I do appreciate that part, and I agree that's why it's popular. I also think people like not feeling like they're going around the media, I think, which is false because he is the media. Nice to meet you. He's richer than anybody in the media. So he is the media, just so you know.

Oh, no, he's Michael Jordan. Spotify CEOs is supposed to get along with him. But they feel like they're not. It's sort of like Trump. It's like, oh, he's talking for me. And I'm like, he could give a fuck about you. And he said so off the record lots of times and people reported it.

Anyway, among those who told us to stay, there were tactical questions. What do we hope to achieve? Sam P. asked, how is it morally better to keep music and podcasts on Apple's platform instead? Apple is engaged in rampant tax avoidance. Let's not talk about worker conditions on their iPhone factories. Tia made a similar point about another tech company. She said, you can't advertise on Facebook, Scott, then pick a fight with Spotify. They haven't done nearly as much damage to Facebook.

Mitchell W. pointed out that Spotify's catalog has podcasts and songs that promote or glorify violence, drug use, and even sexual assault. Why is it Joe Rogan, the tip of the scales? Let me just point that out. Joe Rogan works for them, is paid for by them. They're a platform in this case with the music, and that means all the music has to come off all the platforms. And some platforms do it and some don't, but that's not the same. It's not equal in that one. So I'm going to answer that one. The other two, Scott, you talk about Facebook advertising, which we talked about last week, and talk about Apple, please.

Well, Spotify is capitalism at work because I have a choice. And that is I think Spotify is how capitalism is supposed to do. I have an honest choice. I can go to Apple. We can go to Amazon. I lose 10% or 12% of our revenues. I don't lose 70 or 80. First off, I advertise my ed tech firm or we advertise on Facebook. I hate it. I could abdicate to the notion that I'm a minority shareholder and I don't control the company,

which is accurate. But I haven't taken a right to stand against that. There's a moral lack of clarity there. But here's the problem. You have no choice if you want to acquire consumers online but to go to Facebook and Google. You can take a moral stand and go out of business. But that's capitalism not working. We've let monopolies prop up. People will – I think I have some credibility when I say it really pains me to spend money there. Also, another criticism in a fair one I got is how can you support Mehmet Oz for Senate

when he has been guilty of spreading misinformation? And here's the bottom line, and I want to be very honest about it. If I'd been friends with Joe Rogan for 25 years, I wouldn't be doing this. My friendships and my relationships supersede my concerns around the spread of misinformation. in my relationship supersede my concerns around the spread of misinformation. And also in Mehmet's defense, if you type in Mehmet Oz and vaccines, the story you will get is that he went on Hannity and said we should be celebrating vaccinations. Most of his misinformation that he has gotten shit about have been involved, I would call it, you know, crazy blueberries, the miracle diacure. I don't think it's nearly as damaging as misinformation around vaccines.

We're not going to have the Mehmet Oz argument. He's really quite appalling. Well, let me be clear. He's had an appalling record of misinformation. I have no moral clarity when it comes to my friends. All right, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair.

So now I'm going to go do something bad and have you defend me. I would do that. That's a fair point. I would do that. As we said, this is a complex topic. It's really hard. But in this case, it feels very clear-cut to Scott, and I see why. that's a fair point. I would do that. As we said, this is a complex topic. It's really hard. But in this case, it feels very clear-cut to Scott,

and I see why. You know what I mean? And it is pretty clear-cut. No, it wasn't clear-cut. Well, clear-cut. You remember me. You didn't hear me. I called you over the weekend, and I wanted therapy.

Yeah, I wouldn't talk to you. And then I'm like, no one gives a shit. That's not true. That's not why you should do things. You should do things without people seeing them, and that makes the difference. You know why? That's a good point. Because God sees it. That's a good point. do things. You should do things without people seeing them, and that makes the difference. You know why? That's a good point. Because God sees it.

That's a good point. God sees it, Scott. Anyway, you shouldn't do anything for performative. No, he doesn't, but anyways. All right, atheist. No, he doesn't. Anyway, one point of confusion for our many listeners. Apple and Spotify are not the only apps where you can find Pivot.

Here are tons of great podcast apps. Pocketcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts. You can get it on Amazon, too. There's lots of places to pick up Pivot. And you should if you not want to use any of those things. And we encourage it, and we think it's great. And however you want to listen to us, please listen to us. Scott will also deliver the podcast directly to you on a thumb drive if that's what you

want. We won't do that at all. I'm here. Don't let him in. You got anything to drink? Do not open the door. Is it happy hour? And if he's bringing Meh want. We won't do that at all. I'm here. Don't let him in. You got anything to drink? Is it happy hour? And if he's bringing Mehmet Oz, definitely don't open the door.

Tell him, Kara, you'd like him. You'd find him infinitely reasonable. I really don't. First Republican Muslim elected to Senate if it happens.

He's not getting elected. Are you kidding? They're laughing him out of Pennsylvania. He doesn't live there. I do like that Lieutenant Governor. I got to give you that.

I do like him. Oh, John Fetterman. Yeah, he's fantastic. Anyway, we'll see what happens. Pennsylvania's a complex state, like many states, but it's particularly, I have my family.

As are we. No, my family's from Pennsylvania. If we were a state, we'd be in an enigma. We're people from Scranton. You mean where you pull fossils out of the ground and put it into the air

for climate warming? No longer. We clean up the ground now. That's for the clean, cold people. As you wash your face of black lung cola. No, we paid up on that. Moral clarity. We don't have mines, my friend.

Anyway, we do strip mining. One of your mines names is Oz. Anyway. That was good. You're trying to sackler me. It's not going to work because you're friends with Mehmet Oz. You're trying to distract your Mehmet Oz love. I'm telling you, the guy I want at one of these events is the other brother.

The other brother. By the way, you know who I called for advice around this? I called your brother. Oh, you did? What did he say? Really? Oh, he didn't tell me that. Okay.

All right, good. Yeah, he's a very thoughtful guy. He's a very thoughtful guy. He's a really thoughtful guy. He's like, look, I don't, you know, I told him, you know, I use the analogy of I don't eat a Chick-fil-A. Until my kids literally two years ago came to me and said, we're going to kill you in your sleep if you don't take us to Chick-fil-A. Yeah, my sons eat Chick-fil-A. And evidence of proof I have not been there in 30 years is I tried to take my kids there on a Sunday.

And I'm all like, we're headed to Chick-fil-A. And literally Twitter erupts like, hey, dipshit, it's Sunday. They're not open. Oh, because of church, I guess. But anyways, I used a Chick-fil-A example. and he said, there's a Chick-fil-A across my hospital, and I haven't eaten there. And he said, yeah, you don't have moral clarity about this issue, but I get it. And voting with capitalism is fine.

He was very thoughtful. He asked a ton of questions like you did. The Swishers got it all. I don't know. I'm a big fan of yours. I like your family. Yeah, we're very, yeah. I'm living in with your family.

We come to play. We come to play, the Swishers. We do. We have a nice family. I just, I'm trying big fan of yours. I like your family. Yeah, we're very – I'm living in your family. Yeah, we come to play. We come to play the Swishers. We do. We have a nice family. I just – I'm trying to figure out – I need to have a conversation with Lucky. What did she do? All three of you seem to be overachievers. You can talk to her in Florida at Pivot NY.

She's going to be wandering. I just can't wait to see what she's wearing. She's going to be wandering around making friends with the conservative social media people. That's what she's going to be doing. It's clear her fashion sense has skipped a generation. You look like you shop at the Brooklyn Junior's boys department at JCPenney's. Don't even speak. I don't know what is going on there.

I'm such a huge disappointment to her. It goes on and on and on. Please, I wish she had had a gay son. That's all I have to say. We need prom photos. What did you wear to the prom? I look good at the prom. I went to four proms, I told you.

Remember, you went to none. Yeah, you told me you were bragging. I did. It's not a brag, it's the truth. Anyway, thank you to the very nice men I went with, boys at the time. Thank you for everyone who got in touch. We take questions every week about any subject, so send us your queries. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show, or come ask us in person in Miami. And by the way, the Spotify stuff got worse when their results came out this week, just so for people to know, it was not good. And they talked a little bit about Rogan, but even though they grew, there were some real issues around earnings

and stuff like that, which we'll be talking about very soon. Well, I mean, come on, Facebook is... Yeah, I know, we'll talk about Facebook. She met her? But Spotify stock, which has been volatile, fell by 22%. And then it was down and up. So he only talked about the thing briefly. So anyway –

Kara, if you looked at the stock, you wouldn't know anything had happened. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, relative to the market, you wouldn't know. They've had a rough week, let's just say. All right. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. Rough week, let's just say. All right.

Anyway, let's get to our first big story. Big tech winners and losers in this week's earnings. Alphabet making it look as easy as ABC. Oh, wow. Producers, thanks for that one. Google's parent company reported blowout earnings in the fourth quarter and beat analysts' predictions. On Tuesday, Alphabet announced a 20 for 1 stock split, but they weren't popping corks all over the valley. Shares of Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, fell more than 20% in part due to the impact of Apple's privacy changes. Also, issues around growth. Also,

the money they've been spending on the Metaverse. That brought down the shares of other tech giants, including Snap and Twitter, and Facebook's number of daily global users dropped for the first time ever by one million. And again, the spending on Meta is insane. Metaverse is $10 billion they lost on that, in that division, the Reality Labs division. 2022 could bring challenges for both Alphabet and Meta. The Senate is considering a bill that would force the company to pay news publishers similar to the Australian law that took effect. Meta, Zuckerberg blamed anti-tracking feature that was expensive for them. But Google did well because it had its own data.

Apparently, that's what they're saying. And so that was interesting. But the big thing was this cost, this $10 billion cost for the metaverse investment. So what do you think about the situation? So this is the quarter that Google disarticulates from Facebook, much less Pinterest and Snap. And that is search as its own form of communications and advertising that continues to just grow. And Facebook, Twitter, and Snap, which are all down in our trading and sympathy right now, ad support, even at scale, the ad supported model seems to be under pressure. Facebook, for the first time in 18 years, had a decline in daily active users. It's never

registered that. So just some positives, because I'm always critical of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg is a brilliant business person. He's doing exactly what he should be doing, and that is he's making a staggering investment in trying to pivot the Titanic and find something big enough to replace what he sees as the sun passing midday on their core business model. So they're doing exactly- He's also bored with it. Let's keep that in mind. He's bored with it. You could feel it, right? Well, he's making a stagnant. He's doing exactly the right thing strategically. The problem is the tactics make no sense. And that is the people in this universe are not impressed with the universe he envisions and specifically the portal.

And look, one of my predictions in November of 2021 when I make 2022 predictions is that the biggest failure in tech product history might be the Oculus. And the VR group or the Reality Labs group grew from $1 billion to $2 billion, but to spend $10 billion to get to $2 billion. So if he pulls it off, it'll be one of the most impressive feats in renewal, corporate, not even corporate renewal, but vision around maintaining growth if they pull it off. I don't think they're going to. I think this thing is already a giant flaming bag of shit. Well, he's got some pattern matching in when they move to mobile.

So that's where it feels like that's where he's thinking about in terms of the move to, you know, in how they move to mobile and everyone thought they were cooked and their goose was cooked and it wasn't. So he's doing a similar thing, but he really is spending. This is like a big, giant frigging bet. You can't argue that the guy isn't bold and isn't a visionary. But the two words that are missing from the narrative or your narrative around the problem and why they have hit a wall here, the first word is tick and the second is talk. Another thing.

I left that out. TikTok. They talked about it. They talked about the audience issues. TikTok has learned from Facebook, and that is the majority of the complaints I see about TikTok are creators upset that their content got taken down. So they've pivoted the other way. I think that Joyous – Still, they've got problems, yeah. Yep.

I want to be clear. They have problems. The chicken. The NyQuil chicken thing really has to stop. But go ahead. Or Assault Your Teacher Challenge. I mean, yeah. No, they moved on. No moral clarity here. NyQuil chicken thing really has to stop, but go ahead. Or assault your teacher challenge. I mean, yeah. No, they moved on.

No moral clarity here. It's NyQuil chicken now, sleepy chicken. Anyway, go ahead. But directionally, I think they're more about joy and creativity as opposed to arguing and calling other people out and teen depression and all this shit. So I'm a big fan of TikTok. TikTok will likely, I mean, keep in mind what happened with Facebook here when you're talking about numbers. In five minutes post the release of the earnings and the missed numbers, Facebook shed the value

of Pinterest, Twitter, BMW, and Mercedes. It lost $180 billion in market capitalization. And I think money has power in a capitalist society. And a signal of their channel power, which is what Lena Kahn says you should focus on, this company, when it reports bad earnings, loses the value of BMW, Mercedes, and all of social media except for Facebook and Google. They lose Twitter. They lose Snap. They lose Mercedes. They lose BMW in five minutes post-earnings call. And my point is people don't recognize just how incredibly unhealthily powerful these companies are. But I think TikTok, and this is the issue around TikTok, if TikTok can disarticulate itself in a credible way from this fear that it could be weaponized on a

moment's notice by the CCP, it will probably be one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world in the next 24 to 36 months. It'll be interesting. So I want to get back to Facebook stock because it really is, if you look at it over the max time, it opened at 38.23 in 2012, essentially. in 2012, essentially. Its high was recently in September at 376, 26, somewhere in there,

right around that. So that's 10 times, essentially, right? 278, 69 at 378. So 10 times, right, over that period of time. It's now at 246. And so not 10 times, that's whatever, eight times.

And so it's just started, it's still incredibly great investment for people, but it's not, it's interesting. It didn't bounce back today. Maybe it will do that, but it didn't. I think people are very, I don't know which one they're worried about more. Is it TikTok? Is it the Apple thing or the metaverse? Oh, we didn't bring up that.

Apple's privacy has been, oh, you did bring it up. That's been big. Yeah, yeah. So it's a question. The one thing that it shows, and this is something I've mentioned before, but it's – if TikTok is doing so well, which Mark has always said they have competitors, then they're not a monopoly. I think they actually have a very good argument in that regard. One thing that was interesting was his quote. Fair point. One thing that was quote, which is,

although our direction is clear, it seems our path ahead is not quite perfectly defined. So, their direction is not clear, right? Like, honestly, and I wrote a column that said, you'd imagine $10 billion would buy a better map. So, we'll see what happens with this company. It's very, there's a lot going on here. So, we'll see. But this is what, this is the other problem they face. And that is when you go to work for Exxon or Altria, you make certain, a lot of people make what I call certain moral compromise. And, but here's the thing, they're great employers.

They pay their people really well. They invest in their, in the human capital. They're fantastic employers. And that's, that makes, that makes the trade-off a trade-off. But people are embarrassed to be working for them also, right? People are embarrassed to be working for Facebook. I know they are. Well, that's my exact point. But they're willing to wash over that embarrassment with Benjamins. And that is, as long as the stock keeps going up and you look at your,

you have a four or five-year vest. And within six months of joining, you're like, oh, my gosh, I got a million dollars in stock. That means a quarter of a million a year in additional comp that I'm vesting. And then you wake up two and a half years into your four-year vesting cycle and you're like, oh, that two or three million dollars in options I had is now worth $700,000. You all of a sudden find your moral compass begins to burn a little brighter. And they're going to have to probably issue additional options with new strike prices, take a non-cash hit. But that's the problem.

When it's raining money, it blurs your vision. A lot of employees at Facebook are going to find new clarity and all of a sudden find their moral compass when the stock is down. I think they're in for a rough year because I think you're going to start to get data back on the Oculus or Quest or whatever the fuck it's called. Although, you know, a lot of people like it. I'm going to push back. I think a lot of people are excited by the Oculus. Name someone under the age of 25 that has been found with an Oculus. Fair point.

Fair point. But I'm saying they've got, that's not a bad product. Like I usually whack their products. It's not a bad product. Not a bad, it's a good product. I have one. I was using it, it's great. For $10 billion?

I agree. It's an expensive, good product. So we'll see. It's not AirPods, I'll tell you that. Like they'd be lucky if it was AirPods, right? AirPods is an unqualified hit. This is, it all comes down to instinct. And I think everything, business, we talk about it in terms of biology. And the basis of biology is survival and propagation. And the reality is,

we spend 90% of our attention in our evaluation of another person non-verbally through aesthetics and visual. And 90% of that energy and evaluation goes to one region that is 7% of our person, and that is our face. And so people are very particular about if it has to be glasses that bring up the height of my cheekbones, which intimates that I have less prone to infection, a strong jawline, which means I'm more violent and can protect your children, facial hair, which says that I'm virile, whatever it might be. And this thing, when you put it on your head, it says you're into magic and drive a Mazda, and you should not have sex with me. And 40% of the people who put this on their head feel nauseous. I don't know. We'll see.

So they have denied and they have ignored a basic instinct among people. I think Apple will make this and knock them out of the water in this one. They'll pivot to B2B. Yep. They'll pivot to B2B. There will be some applications. Anyway, last question. What are the chances, very briefly, of Congress passing a bill that forces big tech to pay

publishers? It's interesting. It's got a lot of momentum. I'm not so good with this one. I haven't heard of that. What are you saying? I'm not good with that. I don't think.

I think they should pay for what they use. It's complex. Let's talk about it more next week. I'm going to talk to some smart people and figure it out. But, you know, in Australia, it was sort of tarnished by the News Corp link kind of thing. Government should not be deciding, other than minimum wage, government shouldn't be deciding who pays who what. Break them up. Break them up. Yeah, I think that's probably right. Have more people bidding on creators and human capital. Yeah, that's true. That'll bring it up.

I definitely think that we've all been painting their fences, and now we aren't. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back. An unexpected exit at CNN. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle.

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That's www.alexpartners.com slash box. That's www.alixpartners.com slash V O X. In the face of disruption, businesses trust Alex partners to get straight to the point and deliver results when it really matters. Scott, we're back with our second big story, which is close to home for you. Jeff Zucker is out at CNN. He resigned unexpectedly this week, or maybe expectedly, citing an undisclosed relationship with a senior executive. Zucker reportedly wasn't eager to leave. He offered to stay on as WarnerMedia finds a new home because AT&T announced this week

that Warner will be spun off into a new company with discovery and a $43 billion move. It's moving toward the end. Anyway, that deal is closing. David Zasloff will be running the company. It looks like it's probably going to pass muster with the government. It looks like it's in good shape. But this was something else. This was amidst the Cuomo meltdown where Andrew Cuomo, who's alleged to have sexually harassed

people and looks like he did, looks like his brother was helping him. His brother has his program on CNN. He's helping him more than they thought. And Zucker was very supportive of him until he wasn't. And then they've been arguing over a settlement of, I think, $18 million for his contract, which CNN doesn't want to pay. And then this came out during the legal proceedings when the lawyers asked about a relationship

with Allison Gallis, who I know both Jeff and Allison. I've worked with them many times over the years. And I've interviewed Jeff many times. Anyway, what do you think of this, Scott? What do you think? I think there's a lot more to it than just a relationship, but we'll see. So I've never been more sincere when I say, you go first, Carol. Okay.

You know, this whole – oddly enough, I hate to say it, but the New York Post had some very good reporting. Not every bit of it was. But, you know, it's complex. I think it's not about that. I think it's about the whole Cuomo debacle. And now CNN's ratings are down, too, because no Trump, essentially. I think a lot of people were critical of Zucker paying so much attention to Trump many years ago. He and I have talked about that quite a bit. He has his argument about that. Obviously, he worked with him on The Apprentice. I don't think it has anything to do with this. And Trump sort of crowed about the end of the biggest person with the problems around real sexual harassment

was crowing about what is a consensual relationship. And so it's complex. I think the biggest issue is people meet each other at work. I went out with someone I worked with. Disclosure is very important, I think, and as quickly as possible. Not everyone's perfect, but this was a lot of time. I think that was got sucked into a legal proceeding, made it even worse, you know. And I think, you know, it sort of tarnishes her because she's a high-ranking executive making lots of decisions about these issues. It obviously tarnishes him because they didn't disclose what everybody knew. So it just creates a real problem when there's a crisis like this. And, you know, they have since been divorced and they're together from what I understand. I haven't talked to them in a long time, but I mean, I've emailed relatively recently,

not too recently, but I think it was the legal proceeding added with how long they were going out and didn't disclose and then sucked into this and the ratings and the changes. I think it's just too much for AT&T's perspective. It just caused too much. There's been a lot of heat around all this stuff, and it needed to go away, I guess. What do you think?

So I want to acknowledge that when CNN hired me, they said we want— CNN Plu. CNN Plu. Thank you for that. They said, we want your unfiltered takes on things. So I just want to live up to that. All right. Go for it.

Because every rational bone in my body says, Scott, you should be Ted Kennedy at the Clarence Thomas hearings and just keep it to yourself. Look, so I've thought a lot about this. That's a terrible reference. You were just – It's – okay. So first off, I've been on seven public company boards. Within two to three meetings on every board, an issue like this comes up. The heart is a strong and highly irrational muscle. And then you put it into the complexities of the corporate world who is having a correct

immune response to a lot of the bullshit and abuse of power that has taken place in the corporate world. So we put in place guidelines. And also, I want to acknowledge that it's easy to heckle from the cheap seats. And what I generally find about board decisions that initially, and this must have been a board level decision, may not make sense. I always find when I get inside the tent that sometimes or oftentimes I find out I'm not as smart as I thought and they're not as dumb as we'd hoped. I do think there likely will be more information that comes out because from my perspective, this quite frankly doesn't make a lot of sense. It feels like we're missing something now, having said this, the reason we have disclosure rules in corporations is because

there's been tremendous abuses of power, mostly by men. And also, if a relationship comes up after the fact and someone is fired or there's a problem and that person goes, oh, by the way, I was in a relationship with so-and-so, that person is fucked, the company is fucked, shareholders are fucked. So it is very reasonable to go, we realize we're humans. So if you enter into a relationship, you need to disclose it. It's also reasonable to say, if you're the top guy or gal in an organization, you especially need to disclose it. There's just no getting around it. Both of them screwed up here. Now, having said that, having said that,

the reason we have humans on boards, the reason we have humans who are judges, is that humans have discretion and can supposedly understand nuance. I hate mandatory sentencing laws. I think it takes the power away from this incredible processor in between people's brains to assess the situation and have some nuance. And here's some of the nuance we know so far. They were clearly going out for a long time. It doesn't appear that anyone feels abused. No one at CNN, as far as I know, has said that she got favorable treatment. Nobody tarnishes her. Her credibility gets ruined because of it. She's highly competent. Like, let me say, having worked with her,

I find her highly competent. Like, and I deal with a lot of people, right? Well, I'll circle back. But you have two people in a consensual relationship. It doesn't appear to me that, I'm not sure I just would have made – I think I would have done something. I think I would have said you got to disclose it right away. We're putting you both on leave. We want to talk.

But it feels like, okay, who gets hurt here? We wake up this morning. This is what's happening. Thousands of lives will be affected. CNN is in the middle of a post-Trump era. They are trying to make a transition to streaming. Thousands of people's lives will be affected because this place is rudderless. The other question I would ask and what makes no sense for me is we have taken away all of her agency.

She's still there. They have announced the exact same infraction at the exact same time. They clearly coordinated their press releases. He's walked out of the building, and her press release ends with, I look forward to building my – I mean, have we taken away agency from women? I'm trying to figure out – and by the way, let's be clear, and this is where personal loyalty comes in. I don't know the guy. I've never been in the same room with him. I'm a really small mouse here, but the-

The talent loves him. If he called me this afternoon and said, Scott, I'm taking over TikTok. I'm taking over Snap. We want professors who joke about erectile dysfunction and have some insight into business. Will you join us? I'd say, yes. I wouldn't even ask what the terms are. And guess what? I would bet somewhere between 50 and 80% of the talent at CNN feels the same way. Yeah, they might. I have never seen – They're not the riskiest people in the world, and they like their big, fancy salaries and town cars.

Okay. The loyalty here – There is. Is incredible. Look, there's just no getting around it. They fucked up. And there's also no getting around it. The only person getting more job offers this morning than Joe Rogan is Jeff Zucker.

Yeah, could be. And if you – I haven't heard anyone at CNN say that they feel like they were damaged or feel – I think everyone's just sort of questioning the decision. I feel like it was sucked up into a legal proceeding and that's what happened. It was. I think that's – it seems – I don't know. I need to find out more. But I think one thing is – I interviewed with Don Lemon and Jake Tapper and other, I know lots of people at CNN and they all love Jeff Zucker. It's great.

Like almost to be like, you know, take it down, boys, kind of thing. I was like, you can have some criticism of him. And they don't. They really find him incredibly supportive on their side, et cetera, et cetera. And it's remarkable, actually. I remember thinking, oh, God, this guy's had a long career, and they really, like, easily could go at him. And they didn't.

They didn't publicly or privately, actually, lots of people there. And so that is interesting. I don't know if he could entice them to come. They always say that about Fox News. They could all leave and go do this. And none of them did. None of them moved an inch. They like where they are.

They like their money. They like this thing. As long as it's going. I think the problem is rudderlessness. That's a big issue. You're absolutely correct. They appointed three co-CEOs. Right, exactly.

Jesus Christ. All, by the way, very people well-regarded. As Stephanie Ruhl would say, grow a fucking uterus. Three co-CEOs. Yeah, I got that. I don't know. Come on. I think the legal proceedings moved it into a situation, and AT&T is a twitchy company, as we know, right, in these kind of things.

And they don't want anything resembling a lawsuit to be aimed at them. Like, even by current employees, like, right, they could say, well, he favored her, even if it's not true, it doesn't matter. And so they sort of bring themselves into a real legal quagmire, possibly, amidst the Chris Cuomo. I know, but it's not, they don't need it. Unless there's something else here. They don't need it. It just doesn't make.

And I think it was the length of time. I think it was the length of time. It wasn't. But is that a good or a bad thing? I don't know. I'm just telling you. It was not. You know who I feel.

It was not. Who I think wins here. What? You know who wins professionally and personally? Jeff Zucker and his girlfriend. Because guess what? It's like Prince Charles and Camilla. I get the sense they're in love.

I know this sounds very emotional and manipulative. He's going to go on to have a bigger job. And he probably feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off of his shoulders. I'm unclear why they didn't disclose. I really don't after that amount of time. Here's what also really bothers me. This is an interesting metaphor for the left versus the right. Fox is gloating and everything.

Okay, over at Fox. Oh, my God. They pay their – hold on. They pay their star. Their star is accused of making a subordinate watch gay porn and then describe it to him. They hear about it and they pay her $30 million in hush money. The guy running the network, basically, as far as I can tell, was like a qualification to accelerate your career as a woman there, involved oral sex. And then here on the left, we decide, okay, if you play grab ass at a fair, we're going to kick you out of the Senate.

Or if you're in a consensual relationship, straight to jail. We eat our own. I don't know. We eat our own. And I'm sick of – No, I'm going to – look, the way they behave over there, Fox, is not the comparable. It's not the – it's not. It's not the benchmark.

It's not the benchmark. Sorry. Fair point. The same thing with Whoopi Goldberg this week that happened. Everyone's like, oh, Meghan McCain says one terrible thing after the next and only gets like a warning kind of thing. And then Whoopi Goldberg gets suspended. I suspect

Whoopi Goldberg wanted to get suspended to show that she had contrition about what she was saying about race and the Holocaust. And so what? So what? It's like if you see children, you know, behave,

well, those kids over there, I don't care. My kids have to behave the way I, you know, like in a different way. I just don't,

I don't buy that. I don't, I don't say, we eat our own. We should eat our own. Well, so you think, based on the information

we know, I don't, you think it was the right decision. I, I, I don't, I am articulating,

it feels like, stay on Spotify or get off. Don't say you're concerned. I don't – You're articulating. I am articulating. Take a stand. It feels like – Stay on Spotify or get off. Don't say you're concerned. I'm not concerned. I think they were going at a very, very long time and probably at some point – I don't know. Is it a year? Is it a couple of months? It shouldn't be several years.

I think it hurts and takes – it shouldn't have been several years and it shouldn't have been several years, and it shouldn't have been a decade that many people think. I agree with you, and that's what HR – the conclusion that HR – as you ask more questions from a corporate standpoint, you get to – quite frankly, you kind of get to the decision they made. And when I say they, I mean corporations. That's what I'm saying. I see how they got to it. Here's the nuance, and I hope they both go on to be really happy. how they got to it. Here's the nuance. And I hope they both go on to be really happy. First off, I don't understand. My limited understanding of feminism is that women should have the same rights, the same opportunities as men. Doesn't that also mean they should have the same

accountability? And I don't see that happening here. Two, look at the 10 years. You can see, like, okay, they were both married. When did the relationship start? They have kids. Who tells the kids? You just kind of – I get it. I know I'm – this shit is complicated. Of course it is.

But they're not like, you know, Joe and Mary working at the local deli. It's just not the same. It's just not the same. So you believe she should be fired? They can't. I think they can't. Why has she not been walked to the door? No, no, no, no.

I think they can't because she's the subordinate. I believe that. Oh, she had a C in front of her name. She's a chief marketing officer. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway. So you're saying different standards for the CEO versus the CMO? You know what? I think nobody's figured this out in corporate life, but I think the length of time- 100%. 100%. I can confirm that. The length of time. It's not a month. It's not even a year. Even a year, you'd be like, okay. Supposedly, it was the worst kept secret at the firm. It wasn't a secret.

Supposedly. It wasn't. Why would I know about it? I was vaguely aware. I didn't care. But it was, you know, everybody knew about it. As I was on the last to find out. Katie Couric had it in her book.

Katie Couric insinuated it very clearly in her book. Like it literally was not even a secret. So why now? That is a good question. And why didn't they act before if they were so concerned? I think because it got sucked up into a legal proceeding that they were terrible. John Malone didn't like him or Jason Keillor. I don't think Jason did.

Come on. Like it's easy to point to Jason. Like he's leaving. It doesn't matter. My point is there's something else here. Yes. Keillor? Keillor, is that his name? I don't think Jason is. Come on. Like, it's easy to point to Jason. Like, he's leaving. It doesn't matter. My point is there's something else here. Yes. Yes. Just as you complimented the New York Post, I'll compliment Sean Hannity.

His headline was, there's something else going on here. There is. I think it's twitchy AT&T. If I had to guess, twitchy AT&T and John Stanky, who already looks bad, he doesn't want to look worse. That's what I would say. And then John Malone somewhere wandering around in the background. That's what I would probably, if I had a guess, that's my guess. That's my guess. Anyway. But here's the bottom line. I just want to go to. All right, we got to go. I hope they're happy. Yeah. I hope they're happy. I hope that CNN employees, I haven't been involved

very long there. It feels like a wake over there. People are really disappointed and bummed out. Yeah, he's very talented. She is too. This is where this all goes and ends, you know, women and men. And you know what I hope for both of them? I hope they have a wonderful relationship full of love and mutual support and that it was worth this – the terrible judgment they have demonstrated and the ramifications were worth it. And guess what? Jeff Zucker at the age of 56 in a world of a lot of media companies with a lack of direction. Jesus Christ.

You want to talk about a career? He's going to get this job. This isn't even a speed bump for that guy. CNN is the loser here. Yeah. He's an interesting fellow. He asked me to have a dinner for him in Silicon Valley to meet people very early. Another person who was very early, Bob Iger, him, and others.

So he's an interesting character, I'll tell you that. He's not the easiest person to talk to. Let me ask you, what's the over-under? My show never gets to episode one after this. Well, you know, it's not because of you being naked or saying something untoward. So that's a good thing. That's a good move. Someone else.

You can sleep on my couch anytime. Someone else. You can sleep on my couch anytime. Someone else. You can sleep on my couch anytime. You know, cable is in a real crisis, I think. It's interesting. I think they should go to more reporting. Oh, you think? I think they should go to more reporting, more, less of this, like, opinion journalism, really.

Like, have some facts. Let's bring some real reporters in and stuff like that. Interestingly, another problem over at MSNB. Who has more facts on cable than CNN? Who has more facts on cable than CNN? Who has more facts on cable than CNN? They veered way too far. They need to move to subscription, and they're doing it. They veered way too far into the blabbery.

Anyway, and the cheap blabbery. I think they did. Rachel Maddow is taking a brief hiatus from her MSNBC show. I think it's probably more than brief. So cable's really in a— Really? What do you know? Nothing.

I don't know. She doesn't speak to me. She's not a lesbian who speaks to me. I talk to all the lesbians and not her. There's a species called lesbians

that don't speak to you? She's it. No, they all do. She's a genius. I still watch her just to learn. Well, she's not... She brings it.

She's doing other things. She's moved on. She's working on a movie with Ben Stiller. She's got a lot of things going on, Rachel does. Really? She does, yeah.

There's all kinds of things. I think she's just like, this is exhausting. I'd like to be friends with both her and Ben Stiller. I would love to have dinner with the two of them. Ben Stiller is always liking tweets of mine, so I like Ben. Ben, call us. We love you. We love you.

We think you're very good. So wait, just for a moment. I think it's important to get back to me. In every fucking article about CNN Plus, they're bringing over big names. How does Chris Wallace feel? And Anderson Cooper. And then they always say, and a lot of interesting new talent, Rex Chapman. They never mention you. I know that. They never mention me. I'm literally, Kara.

They never. I am invisible. I feel as if I'm living in Manhattan and I'm a woman over the age of 45 or a guy that makes less than half a million dollars a year. I'm invisible. I'm living in Manhattan and I'm a woman over the age of 45 or a guy that makes less than half a million dollars a year. I'm invisible. I'm invisible. I'm literally invisible. I am excited for your debut on CNN Plu. We'll see where it goes.

Anything could happen, Scott. Someday you're going to have a TV show. Someday. Someday your ship will come in. Who knows? Oh, and I love it there. They're so nice and they're so good at what they do. Look at poor Scott. Let's take it there. They're so nice and they're so good at what they do. Look at poor Scott.

Let's take it back to you. They're so nice and so good at what they do. How does Jeff Zucker getting fired come back to Scott? How is that? A hundred percent. That's what everyone's wondering about. Nobody's wondering about it. By the way, Roxane Gay.

No one cares. What a heroic move, Roxane Gay. Anyway, on Spotify. All right, Scott. And Mary Trump. Mary Trump. She gets, literally, she gets 700 downloads and there's articles to everyone. They're like, Mary Trump. Mary Trump. She gets, literally, she gets 700 downloads, and there's articles to everyone. They're like, Mary Trump is leaving Spotify.

The gays win. The lesbians. And all I get is, all I get is, you really don't know who Joni Mitchell is? I'm just telling you. That is all I've been getting from the last four years. Don't bet against the lesbians. I'm just giving that piece of advice in life. Okay.

All right, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today.

As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, on to predictions.

First, something we unfortunately didn't predict on the show, the New York Times bought Wordle. Do you get that? I don't play Wordle. Do you get it? I don't get that stuff at all. It's great. What do you mean you don't play it?

It takes two seconds. It's in, it's out, it's done. I'm just kidding. It's so satisfying. It's a satisfying little game. I'm curious what they're doing. I tried to ask questions last night of executives at the Times. They were very tight-lipped about what they're going to do with it.

I think they have to not put it behind the paywall. I think they can use it to entice people into their gaming app, which is quite good. But it's interesting. There's a couple other people who could have bought Wordle. I forget who the others were. It's a great idea. They have subscription around crosswords. It fits the New York Times.

Yeah. It pulls people in. It's a lovely story. It's a great acquisition on both ends because I bet it's a couple entrepreneurs. And this is easily the kind of thing they could flash up and flash down really fast. This is a great acquisition for all parties. There's a lot of copies of it. You know, there's Loodle.

My brother talks about that because he's a pig. Loodle? Loodle, which is lewd words, such as pivot. Pivot's a five-letter word. We should be word of the day. Pivot, don't you think? Yeah. Yeah, no, that's what I was thinking about.

Hey, Sam Dolnick, get on it since you bought it. Speaking of talking out of school, when I was on the board of the New York Times, they recommended that we buy dictionary.com for like $300 million. And it was like my first board meeting. I'm like, what the fuck? We're spending $300 million on dictionary.com? And Barry Diller came in and bought it for like $400 million. I'm like, Jesus Christ, we dodged a bullet there. I know, that's interesting.

I wonder what happened then. Anyway, maybe it makes money. Who knows? Anyway, Scott, prediction. And then we've got to go. This has been a long show. I have a couple. One is, and it has to do with CNN, that essentially you're going to see in the next four quarters

Discovery Communications or whatever they're calling the new tie-up is going to offer all of the calories of streaming. And that is massive production costs with none of the great taste of the subscriber growth of WandaVision or Disney Plus that kind of fell into the Mandalorian. The stock will throw up. Someone will go to Stanky who cry-funkely just needs to reduce debt. Stanky, that's where all the trouble starts. But go ahead. Well, I didn't... I mean, if you look at the actual corporate governance, he still controls the company. He's a 71% shareholder. And we'll go to him and say, how would you like to reduce your debt by $4, $7, $10 billion so you can focus on 5G? Which,

by the way, is absolutely the right move for him. And someone's going to buy CNN and or HBO, the trophy assets out of this thing. Is Twitter again? No, Twitter now no longer has the market cap and needs to stay focused, I don't think. It'd be an interesting merger idea, but I think actually Twitter's going to go to a fintech, Actually, Twitter is going to go to a fintech. But anyways, or Salesforce. So my first prediction is in the first four to six quarters of discovery as a public company reporting, their stock will get hammered. And someone will approach Stanky and take one or more assets out of it because he needs to reduce debt. And there's nothing like a good deal from an orphan from a corporate parent.

And I also just don't think – anyways, there's just going to be a lot of pressure from all ways. And this does not help. This does not help. It might have been one of the reasons behind it. It'll sort of wrap up the Cuomo thing pretty quickly, right? What are they going to say now? We've done everything, right? Yeah, yeah.

Send Al Franken back to Minnesota. That helps progressive values. I'm with you on that one, my friend. So my other prediction is we're about to see a tripling in real estate in a specific region. Any guess? region. Any guess? In 2022, we're going to see a 3 to 5x increase in the value of real estate in this neighborhood. All right. Any ideas? No. What? Tell me. Well, guess. You want to guess? No, I don't want to guess. I don't guess. I'm not a guesser. In the metaverse, specifically like sandbox or the... You had in November, real estate purchases in different metaverses were $133 million or up 9x. Boomers have a difficult time assigning value to digital goods.

Like we just can't understand how people go on Fortnite and buy skins. We just can't understand it. And yet these microtransactions are billions of dollars. You have an entire generation of people who don't have that inability to assign value to virtual goods. You have the veneer or kind of the mythology that real estate makes an outstanding investment. And these players, there's four or five players that are about 80% of the online real estate environment, are doing a really good job of creating scarcity value. They're creating fashion communities that will have special events and storefronts. And I think that,

and I don't like to give advice. I like to tell people what I'm doing. I'm contemplating putting some money. I'm transitioning out of stocks and into real estate just because I like the fact real estate doesn't get marked every day and doesn't cause you digestion. And if you don't put a lot of leverage on it and you have a long time horizon, it's generally a pretty good investment and very tax advantaged. I'm actually thinking about putting some money as a bit of a flyer into real estate in the metaverse. But you're about to see. And by the way, it all may come crashing down in 2023. But real estate, investing in real estate in the metaverse seems less crazy to me than investing in Solana or some of this DojaCoin.

All right. Okay. in Solana or some of this DojaCoin. All right, okay. So you're going to see a 3 to 5x plus increase in the value of real estate in this neighborhood called the Metaverse. Okay, I like it. I have a prediction.

You're not going to find out in 10 years that Scott and I have been involved in a long-term relationship. Oh, that sounds like a cover-up. You're never going to be disclup. That only makes it worse. It's never going to be disclosed. It only makes it worse. Jim Bankoff will not have to deal with it. True or false? You slept over last night. True or false? Yes, you were not there. I enjoyed your couch. I enjoyed sleeping on your couch. It was fantastic. It is a nice couch, isn't it? It's a great couch. I spent

a lot of money on couches, just so you know. I love couches. Well, there will be no disclosure in 10 years. There will be no disclosure in 20 years. There will be no disclosure in 20 years. There will be no disclosure. What's even less than platonic? What is even less charged than platonic? Twitter knows you love the dog. Twitter knows you love the dog. What is less than platonic?

I don't know. I've got to think about it. I've developed a nice friendship and rapport with you. Yes, we have. It's been one of the most rewarding things for me in the last couple of years, Cara. And by the way, people should think of, aside from this sort of debacle over there, people should think of relationships. Having this dinner last night with the Other Times podcasters, they had all the Times podcasters, I have to say I was thrilled to talk to everybody in person. And it was done really well, so it was safe for everyone.

But I have to say it was just, there was something really lovely about and intimate about sitting around in a good way and talking to people and learning about people in a setting. One of the interesting things they did was you had to say something about a grandparent. And I learned so much about people I didn't know, and I felt like I got to know people really well. It was really – there's something great about thinking about a workplace as more than just a place to cash your check. And so I was thinking about that a lot last night as I was walking back to your apartment. There is a lesson here to young people. And I had a friend call me and say, I'm thinking about joining a friend I used to work with who was my boss, starting a new company, but I'm loyal to this SaaS company. And that is, I don't buy loyalty to organizations. An organization is a legal entity. You should be loyal to people. And there are certain institutions that play a meaningful role in society. The New York Times, I think CNN is

one of them. And I get that. NYU is one of them. But I'm not loyal to NYU. I'm loyal to Peter Henry. I'm loyal to Raghu Sundaram, who have been very generous with me. And what I advise young people around is like, your loyalty should be to your family. And if the organization is providing economic security and learning, fine, be loyal to them and be grateful. But who the real loyalty should be to is to people. That is who is going to call you when you're sick. Agreed. That is who's going to take risks and be good to you when you fuck up. Organizations are legal entities.

They are not people. They are not people. Be loyal to people, not to organizations. Yeah, but people always talk about organizations as family. They're not your family. I was thinking because I spent the day with my son. And he's my family, right? But they are something.

They're your team. They're not your team. They're not your team. You're not a family. No, I get that. But there's something more than just Cole. There's a relationship, and it's an important one. Work relationships are critically important, and I hadn't had a dinner like that in years.

And it really was very gratifying, I have to say. It was really interesting. So I'm working with Rebecca Cutler and Scott Matthews, and if they go somewhere else, I'll always take their call because, you know what, they're really talented and really nice. Yeah. So it's a very confusing time, everybody. We are confused ourselves, as you know. In any case, we are.

Come on, be honest. Come on. We hardly make it through the day. Life is complex. Okay, Scott, that is the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman,

Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Organizations are not going to take care of you when you're older. They are not concerned with the condition of your soul. Be loyal to people. That is the key relationship.