Pivot - Live from Advertising Week: Netflix’s Q3 Numbers, Facebook's Name Change and Trump's Social Network

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

Kara and Scott are (virtually) live from Advertising Week! They discuss Facebook changing its name, Netflix’s Q3 numbers and Trump launching a social network. And they tell us how they feel about the latest vaccine mandate pushbacks from In-N-Out Burger and radio host Dan Bongino. Also, some predictions around Shopify and Square. 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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tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Welcome to Pivot. I'm Kara Swisher. Today's episode was recorded live at Advertising Week in New York City. Well, hello, Advertising Week. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.

How you doing, Scott? How's it going? You know, I feel really good today. I've decided I'm changing my name to Yee. I know you're not. Why not? How about me? I think me would be better for you. Just so everyone knows, sorry, we can't be there in person. We would have loved to get Shake Shack with you. It's on the fourth floor, by the way, and they're giving out free fries, which do not get any better by the minute, just so you know, if you've ever had Shake Shack fries. We've got a lot to talk about today, but why don't we just start talking about this? Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you. I'm going to let you finish. Talk about Kanye becoming Yee. Yeah. Well, look, let's be honest. There's a lot going on there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, hey, more power to him.

Great. I think so, too. We'll be talking about the Facebook issue later, which is a little different. But I celebrate him changing his name, and I think it's great. But one of the more important things, and I'm super excited for us because we hope to be on it at some point. Donald Trump is launching a social network. It's called Truth Social. I kid when I say we're going to be on it.

We're not going to be on it. The posts are called truths instead of tweets, which is somewhat clever. Sharing is called a re-truth. It will roll out in the first quarter of 2022, according to a press release. And guess what? It's a SPAC. He's going public via a SPAC, which is already up today, apparently. So now he's going to be in the social media business. Apparently he was offered a big, according to my sources, he was offered a big stake in it rather than just cash. He wanted to be an entrepreneur. He wanted to be Jeff Bezos, allegedly.

And so here he is. So what do you think? What do you think, Scott? Well, I think this is very exciting. I think Donald Trump is going to make blogs great again. I don't, I mean, this is literally like, all right, moving into the future of 2008. And he already has one failed social network under his belt. And what people forget about Donald Trump is in addition to being – I won't even go there.

Let me just say he's a terrible operator. He's made money in entertainment. He's made money in licensing. But he's a terrible operator. And the notion that he's going to figure out a technology business that requires capital and scale, I think that there's a lot of opportunity for him in the social space. But I would go to an existing player or even like a sub stack. But the notion that he's going to be able to find the capital and unless he brings in an incredibly talented operator, I just think this is going to be another example of another failed business. This is going to be right up there with

Trump vodka. I don't think it makes any sense. Yeah, the people involved, apparently they're addressed as a WeWork in Florida. It's also someone who is well-known for doing SPACs, the person who's the chairman and CEO. It looks like, from what I hear about people, are you eating? All right. Home meal. Oh, no, good. Super food. Okay.

Okay, fine. All right. I'm going to keep going. The thing is, what I understand is that others had offered him enormous amounts of money to do things, you know, in the $100 million range. Really? And to go to their different platforms, all these others. And he wants to be an owner.

He wants to be Jeff Bezos. And let me just say, as I texted someone last night, I know Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos is not my friend, and Donald Trump is no Jeff Bezos. But here he is wanting to own a piece of it. And I think that's hard because there's all kinds of issues around his IP and stuff like that, because they're going to want, as you know, you and I have always discussed this, they're going to want the piece of him that they can use to become larger. And so we'll see. And the other thing is creating a technology company is not easy, and scaling a social network is not

easy either. And there are other alternatives out there on the right, like Gab Parler, Getterd, and then the YouTube clone Rumble. So it doesn't make sense from a market standpoint, as you said. Yeah, look, there's a time when your equity, if you will, can command a tremendous equity in another venture that's already at letters D&E and has already made the requisite technology investment and has access to cheap capital, if he's just focused on money, which I think he is, he would be much better off going into a Substack or Patreon or a Getter or whatever you call it and saying, I want 10, 20, 30 percent of this company and I'll be exclusive to you. And one of those firms would hit the bid.

Yeah, they all would, I think. This is just poor business judgment on his part because getting from letters A to E, if you have the opportunity because of your currency in the marketplace to show up and get X at a company that's already at letters D and E as opposed to 2X of a company that's at letter A, A to D in a small business, I mean, we're both entrepreneurs. It's just a massive amount of brain damage with a lot of infant mortality and a ton of friction. Learning to walk is dangerous in the startup world. And if you have toddlers that are already kind of feeding and eating, and I'm not sure where I'm going with

this analogy. Oatmeal, for example, yeah. Yeah, he would be much better off on a risk adjusted basis to get a lot more money to show up to a player and say, do you want Donald Trump? He has had those offers. He has had those offers and he is turning them down. There is something there's some there's more to this story that is happening. But apparently he wants to be an owner. He wants to be an entrepreneur. And he's he's not. He's just not.

Even though he styles himself that way. But he wants to own a piece of the action. I think they would gladly give him a piece of the action too. So it's kind of an interesting thing that he won't take the immediate payoff for an idea that he's going to build a Facebook or Twitter competitor.

I think what's happening is he's just, he'll never get over Twitter breaking up with him, you know, essentially. It's not only the ego of wanting to be the founder of something. I think a lot of it is control. I think this is an individual who's going to have a very difficult time when the CEO of Patreon or Gritter or whatever these things on or Substack call and say, no, we're not going to publish this misinformation. And boss, I'm in charge. And if he goes to another platform, the bottom line is he has a ton of sway.

But, you know, even Michael Jordan can be fired. If Michael Jordan got outrageous enough on the floor or did stupid enough things, the bulls would fire him. I don't think this is an individual that at this point feels like he should answer to anybody. Anybody. Well, he never did. So speaking of things that are still a lot of pushback on vaccine mandates this week, you saw a lot of people joining them, a lot of companies joining them. But San Francisco's government shut down the city's only In-N-Out Burger because it wasn't checking customers' vaccination status. The In-N-Out Burger, which is a fantastic burger, by the way, also, along with Shake Shack and others, said it didn't want to become vaccination police. San Francisco requires proof of vaccination for indoor dining,

which when I was there recently was sort of checked. But I do know people in the restaurant business, they said there's spot checks by the government. So they're only doing takeout only. The company lawyer, again, said we refuse to become vaccination police. It's famously owned by a religious family, which prints Bible verses on their packaging. That's not really here nor there on this issue.

And then in the radio business, conservative host Dan Bongino is threatening to leave his show over the employer's vaccine mandate. He's fully vaccinated. He hasn't said anything about the strict COVID protocols at Fox News, where he also works. But this is his thing. This is cumulus media. And then New York City issued a vaccine mandate for more than 100,000 workers, including police and firefighters.

Obviously, it's coming up on November 1st. There was a really viral video of New York City subway cops, transit cops, pushing a guy out of the subway because he asked them to wear masks. I have been in the subway quite a bit, and most of the police do not wear masks that I've seen. So, resignations could be high, et cetera. Scott, what do you think of all this? This is the opposite side of what we talked about recently. Well, I should just be upfront and say that In-N-Out Burger could be found to be an ISIS terrorist cell, and I would still eat there. I just think they're incredible at what they do. I find the prayers on their cups offensive as an atheist. I will continue to eat there. This company could literally do pretty heinous things, and I think they're so outstanding,

it's not going to impact their business. This is a political move. They say they don't want to be the vaccination police. They're the shoes and shirt police. They enforce all sorts of things when people walk through their doors. And our government has decided that, OK. You know, I was so disappointed, Kara, the death of Secretary Powell. The right and Fox are so good at immediately going, this raises questions of the effectiveness of vaccines. And I was so disappointed that people on the left didn't immediately go, no, this raises questions on our responsibility to one another.

And that if you don't get vaccinated, you're more likely to spread this. You're more likely to spread it to somebody who is immunocompromised, such as an individual who was the first black secretary of state, spent 35 years fighting for this country. And he and a lot of other people are dying needlessly because you refused to get vaccinated. That is, in my opinion, the narrative that the science and

the truth supports. And the right grabs it and says, oh, I mean, Dan Bongino, you want to talk about deeply cynical? I'm vaccinated. Fox is requiring that everyone's been vaccinated. This is what's going on there. He's decided he wants out of his cumulus contract, and he's being heavy-handed and bold with the platform that he doesn't want to be involved in anymore. He wants to go by himself, presumably. I mean, you have to approve a vaccine to get into News Corp. Everyone has one. They all have one. But you should exercise your civil liberties.

And you know what? I'm really proud of the Biden administration here. I think they took too long. But we have put people in prison for a lot less than what we're asking citizens to do here. And whether it's show up to school, whether it's show, quote, unquote, your papers if you want to drive, the notion that somehow that this is anything but a political statement and doesn't result in continued death, disease, and disability. Let me just say, though, it does stick with people. These cops just don't want to wear them. It's really, you know, you saw some, there were some videos of firefighters in San Francisco,

just like as if it was so strange. It's like, whether it's masks or vaccines or whatever, I don't want to do this. And I shouldn't be told by the government to do this. It is sticking in some way. And I don't know how you convince people because one thing is when you require mandates, people tend to fall in line, but there's unrest and anger over it. how this does work, even if Dan Bongino is absolutely doing it cynically, and you know he is. And for his own, by the way, he cares about himself and himself alone, which is fine, but that's what is going on here. He doesn't care about anybody else. It's that it does stick in people's minds that for some reason, this thing, this vaccine, or these masks are really touching on something that people would behave in other senses. Like they don't, you know, they don't pee in the movie theater. Well, some people do. So I don't know how to change that, whether it's marketing or anything else,

or just forcing them. But I think it is difficult for small businesses to have to get in the middle of this. But things have stuck in the public's craw before. There are a lot of people who had a problem with being shipped off to Southeast Asia and getting shot out and having to kill other people they had no beef with. And we said, if you don't go, we're going to put you in jail. Our government has elected leaders that make decisions for what they're supposed to prevent, a tragedy of the commons. And this is, and we want to talk, we keep talking about the great resignation. You know what I'd like to see?

And this is – and we want to – we keep talking about the great resignation. You know what I'd like to see? The great firing. I support the men in blue. The bottom line is there are a lot of people lining up that want to make $80,000 to $150,000 a year as New York police officers. And you know who my role model is? It's Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan saw – the air traffic controllers felt like they had a lot of leverage. They went on strike. They refused to show up to work. And he said, this is dangerous

for our airways. It's dangerous for the economy. So here's your walking papers, boss. I'd like to see the great firing here. You have decided to, I mean, by the way, we talk about the police. I think it's a difficult job. They have to deal with the public. But five times as many officers have died from COVID than have died from gunshot wounds. So I think it's your right, and I think it's the NYPD's right to fire you. I just think it's a very potent political tool by the right. I'm sorry. It's just it's working.

So was the draft. Yeah, that's true. You're fair. That's fair. All right, we're going to move on to our first big story. Facebook is reportedly planning to change its company name, as we just noted. There are no hints yet, but worth noting, the domain meta.com redirects to meta.org, which is owned by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. That's their philanthropy arm, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. I can't wait to hear what you have to say about this. He may need more than a change of name.

He may be added to a consumer protection lawsuit soon, personally. So there's a lot going on there. The D.C. Attorney General says Facebook broke the law by giving third-party apps access to user data, resulting in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He now says Zuckerberg was responsible for giving those apps access himself. So there's so much to go into here. But what is going on? Why? This has been worked on for a couple of years, apparently, and then recently gotten more attention inside the company. And it's not clear whether they're going to do it or not. And some people think it's going to be meta. Some people don't.

Obviously, Google changed its name to Alphabet many years ago. Everyone calls it Google anyway. But what do you make of this? So this will go down. In the world of brand strategy, brand architecture is kind of one of the most interesting parts, and that is how brands, you treat them as a portfolio, like you would stocks in a portfolio. I think what's going on here is that occasionally a brand tries to change its name from RJR to Altria, thinking they'll somehow escape their legacy. It can serve as a cultural or a chronological milestone to say,

all right, we're actually making changes, and this is our new identity. It usually doesn't work, i.e. tronc. No one says, okay, no one buys it. No one buys that you're somehow digital and get it now, Chicago Tribune. But what's going on here that people aren't reporting on is that a brand architecture move like this is structurally a very effective retention tool and can also serve as what I call a branded human shield. Now, what do we mean by that? Every individual in big tech that runs a big business, a big sub-business of the larger big tech company wakes up in the morning and says, hello, Mr. and Mrs. CEO. And they get calls all the time to come be the CEO of a great company, a bigger company. So what they do when

they do this is they say, all right, we're not Google, we're Alphabet. And Sundar, you're now a CEO. You're the CEO of our search division called Google. It's a fantastic retention tool. And so they'll have this- Well, he's now CEO of the whole thing, but go ahead. Yeah. Well, he elevated though, right? Then eventually, but initially you create, it's an incredible retention tool because titles are cheap and you basically proliferate the number of CEO titles and corner offices you can get people. But what's going on here, and I actually think it's a smart move, is that they're going to use the brand as a human shield. And that is,

they're going to say, okay, I think this is what they're going to do. They're going to call the company Meta or Khan and then hire Kanye. I mean, they'll just come up with something, right? And they'll say, all right, Mark is now, and when anyone calls and says the words teen depression or insurrection or Francis Haugen, he can say, oh, you should talk to the CEO of Facebook. And he'll attempt to kind of starch his hat white and be seen on morning television wearing oculuses a lot. And he'll get much more involved and try and position his brand around the metaverse. And he'll find someone who will pay $10 to $50 million a year to basically go take a bunch of arrows in D.C. And he's going to exonerate or lift himself or get the hell out of Facebook Dodge.

So this is a human shield for Mark Zuckerberg. And it's also a means of retention because they'll create more CEO spots. I think it's a smart move, quite frankly. You do, really. So you think it's not just putting – know, putting, people are talking about lipstick on a pig. You know, there are jokes about truth being the new name of Facebook, et cetera, et cetera. You don't think it's more of like people going, are you frigging kidding me? Yeah, look, I think Facebook is mendacious. I think they demonstrate a lot of sociopathy,

a lack of regard for the Commonwealth, but they're not dumb. And they're right now in a canyon, and there's tsunamis of shit pouring down for them everywhere. And somebody, I imagine more than one people have said, we need what I would call a blood offering. We need a dramatic change here. And, Mark, you need to disassociate. I mean, and AG just added him personally to a suit, his name personally. So I think he's basically decided I need to disassociate and distinguish and put ring fence, my involved. I need the vent overlap between Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook to be less of an overlap.

And I'm going to create a new brand architecture. I'm going to put someone in charge of Facebook so I can pretend it's not my fault. And I'm going to go on morning shows with oculuses, which is a lot brand architecture. I'm going to put someone in charge of Facebook so I can pretend it's not my fault. And I'm going to go on morning shows with oculuses, which is a lot less toxic. All right, but can he do that? Because he has full, everyone knows he has full control over everything. So can he actually do that? Can he actually pull it off? In the case of Alphabet, you know, Larry Page just, I think, didn't want to talk to people, I think, at some point. Right. And they made like three people, there was no PR people at the alphabet.

Like you couldn't reach them. You couldn't actually reach out, but you could reach the individual companies. And so you never understood where the real power was. That was the point. But I think in that case, there wasn't a particular controversy they were trying to avoid. I think they were just doing the first thing, which was giving people CEO. Susan Wojcicki was CEO of YouTube. Sundar Pichai was CEO of Google.

And I get that part of it. And they did this at Apple, I mean, excuse me, at AOL many years ago. There was always a CEO of one of the divisions, right? It was a way to put the, to sprinkle around benefits to people, I guess. But this one, I think he cannot, he cannot be disengaged from Facebook. Can he? Or do you think over time people will go, oh, yeah, that Zuckerberg guy? Instead of quitting, this is what he's doing. Because that's another thing people have raised. I agree with you. No one should go for the head fake, but I think it's a smart strategy. He wants

to reposition himself around something more benign. He wants to distance himself from Facebook, and he wants to reposition, if you will, or increase the positioning of the company and the association of the firm and him personally around, quote unquote, the metaverse. It's much less toxic. It's much more hopeful. It's much more visionary. And then at a minimum,

he'll probably get out of a couple summons or calls to come speak in front of the House antitrust subcommittee because they'll say they will argue and the committee will go for it saying, well, you should speak to the CEO of Facebook. That's the right person to come testify. I hope you're right. I hope people don't fall for it. So is that a shit sandwich for whoever the CEO is? Do you have any thoughts on whether you would take that job?

Is it just a question of money or why not? I'll take it. Cara, we're all whores. That person is going to ruin their reputation. Their grandkids are going to be horrified. And it's worth it.

They'll get paid a shit ton of money. I have a friend who's the head of global communications for Facebook. And he put out some tweets saying once you're ready to engage and not spread misinformation. And did you see what happened to him? I'm not even going to use his name. communications for Facebook, and he put out some tweets saying, once you're ready to engage and not spread misinformation. And did you see what happened to him? I'm not even going to use his

name. But the bottom line is America becomes more like America every day. And what do I mean by that? It becomes a kinder, gentler nation for people with money, and it becomes a rougher, more rapacious place for people without money. So if you can legally make $10 to $50 million by becoming a weapon of mass distraction, delay and obfuscation, quite frankly, it's probably a decent trade. And we're all purists, but at the end of the day, once this person is out of Facebook and has their $50 to $100 million, he or she would probably say, it was worth the embarrassment. It was worth hauling my ass in front of Congress. It's an incredible test of someone's skills. So yeah, it's a shit sandwich, but guess what? You're getting paid a lot to eat that sandwich. All right. So what

happens to Sheryl Sandberg in this scenario? Does she become CEO of Meta? Does she get to get on the boat with Mark? I think Sheryl's reputation has been so, I mean, you know her, I don't. So I just, as an outsider, I think her brand, I think people are just so, I think anytime people hear or see Cheryl Sandberg now, it's the mother of all eye rolls from everyone. But how does he get out of it and she doesn't, given he's the one actually responsible? Well, he refuses to leave. And I think that he basically, I mean, let's talk about Colin Powell. Colin Powell, they basically took a distinguished career, bravery, civil service, and they said, we're going to throw all of that reputation

on the fire here, and you're going to hold up a vial, and you're going to, without evidence, without, you know, or with false evidence, you're going to convince everyone to go into a war. And basically, Colin Powell's kind of the asterisk on his entire legacy was the way that, in my opinion, the Bush and Cheney administration threw his reputation to the wolves for their own disingenuous objectives. That is what Mark Zuckerberg has done to all of these individuals. And his attitude is, all right, Sheryl we're $2 billion. It took a decade. You did a great job. But we've basically burned through your reputation. I think it's worth it to him. I think he's decided, I don't ever want to leave. I have the money. I have the lawyers. And he's just going to try and distance himself from it.

But the trade that he makes with these people is okay. He's doing it right now. I mean, with Clegg, with this kid, Andy Stone, they've had storied honorable careers in my view, and they've made a trade. I'm going to go out, and as long as I can, I'm going to chip away, and I'm going to throw my reputation on the funeral pyre here for money. All right. So Mark has taken the lifeboat. No one else gets to go, is what you're saying, essentially. All right. He's in control. He has two classes of shares. He has security on each end of his blocks. He sleeps well at night. I think he's a bit of a sociopath. I think he's fine and he has no intention of leaving. So this is a good move. So you say this is a good move. All right. Okay.

Interesting take. Okay. We'll return in a moment. We'll return in a moment. their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world.

These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize?

What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees, and it takes forever to build a campaign?

Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. And now back to our episode recorded live at Advertising Week in New York City. All right, our next big story is Netflix.

Its Q3 numbers came in and they look good. It outperformed on earnings, was solid on revenue, subscriptions grew. Even as the U.S. market is saturated, they're still doing well. Netflix didn't mention Dave Chappelle in the earnings release or on its call, even as its employees walked out on Wednesday in protest. A lot of this was lifted by Squid Game and some other things they've been doing really well. But co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who I recently interviewed, told employees on Monday that he, quote, screwed up internal communication about it. He had sent out kind of a in-your-face email to his employees. He previously defended Netflix's choice to run the special. Also, you know,

it was just interesting. This was really interesting what he did here. He gave an interview to Variety. I think he'll probably be talking to me soon. So what do you imagine he does here? He's just sort of letting, saying everybody's right. It sounds like that's what it feels like here. Like, you're all right. You're right to feel bad. We made a mistake in the way we talked to you. We still defend Dave Chappelle. By the way, Squid Games. Essentially, that was the message that I got. I think Netflix is arguably the best managed company in tech.

And if you think about, I'm going to avoid the Chappelle. I think the Chappelle thing, I think it's great when CEOs come out and say, I fucked up. I think that's usually a smart strategy to acknowledge that you did something incorrectly. I think people like to forgive. I think eventually the controversy will get washed over by something else. Just as Haugen was washed over by Chappelle, something's going to wash over Chappelle in the next news cycle. There will be another controversy that begins to fade here. But the thing that Netflix is just such – I mean, these people are just so visionary. So you have the

American streaming market, which largely Netflix controlled for seven years. And then everyone said, oh my God, content is a point of differentiation for much more valuable companies that have handsets and sell paper towels. And there was a massive incursion of capital into streaming in the domestic market, which is going to drive down returns. And Netflix already is in almost every household here. So what did they start doing about 10 years ago? They started making massive, unparalleled investments in international production. And they have 10,000, I think it's 10,000 people in Madrid, and they come up with an amazing scripted criminal drama. it's 10,000 people in Madrid, and they come up with an amazing scripted criminal drama,

and there's a car chase scene in Vilnius, and they say, cut, and then they swap in the hottest actor and actress from the Czech Republic. And then they say, cut, and they swap in the hottest actor and actress from the Ukraine or whatever it is. They're taking the NASDAQ cheap capital and US production values and applying it to local creativity. South Korea, it ends up, has incredible filmmakers, has incredible creative talent. And then when you lay on top of that, the global reach of Netflix, plus the American production values, plus American NASDAQ driven capital, you end up with Parasite, you end up with the Squid Games. The whole notion that we have something called best foreign film is ridiculous. Two of the five biggest launches in Netflix history are Squid Game and Money High.

So Netflix is literally playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Yeah, I would agree. I think that was smart for him to apologize. And it's just like him, too. You know what I mean? Like he, one of the things about Netflix is, you know, they have their sort of vaunted sort of stress internal thing they do with each other. And one of them is this sort of radical transparency. And so and admitting when you're wrong and coming clean, I think that's the way it's gonna go here. That said, Reed Hastings was

much firmer and didn't say didn't do this. It. It was left to Ted to say, I'm sorry. They're co-CEOs, but Reed was pretty firm in the discussions with employees about backing Dave Chappelle. And at the same time, I think Ted realized, well, one could, you know, this is the argument I made in a column last week was like, okay, he should be able to say what he wants, but it still was shitty. Like, I think that's where he went. I think is where he went is that he didn't want to, you know, make an enemy of Dave Chappelle, because he's an important person. And it iterates down to other comics and things like that, if it's shown that they're not being good to Dave Chappelle. And at the same time, they do have employees who have a point of view, and they've encouraged that over time. And that's the thing, is they have told their employees to do exactly what they did. And so I think they have to, I thought saying he screwed up was a perfect

way to do it, I have to say. I've just never understood these virtual walkouts. Really? You're so offended and upset by this, so you're going to go into work where you weren't because you're remote so you can walk out and then go back home? I just – All right. But at work, I like the idea. You know, they don't necessarily end up in anything, but it sends a message to the company. Okay.

Whatever. Whatever. You don't care if people walk out. You don't even know if they're walking out or not. I mean, how did anyone know they were walking out? Aren't they all walking from home? Besides the walkout, this particular group of people were able to get this on the radar screen of the media, too. And so that's what they've done. They've done a good job. And actually, if you actually read it, they aren't going to put up with it.

We're so offended we can't listen to things. They were very clear. We're not offended. Here's what we think is a problem with it. And that's what was great about it. They did a nice, very nuanced job. Can you do me a favor? I'm generally asking because I'd like to hear. What was the crux of their – I guess the question is, and I was – what is the ask? What do these employees who walked out want Netflix to do? Well, probably not hire Dave Chappelle.

I think they want it to be shown that – I think probably more representation of, say, trans comics or things like that would be my guess. I think it's – there's lots of different asks. And I think the issue is to call attention to it within – because they had this issue a couple years ago, similar issue, around another depiction. And so I think – and several times. And I think they probably were like, okay, that's enough now. We're going to really put our – be very noisy. I like people being very noisy inside companies. I think they probably were like, okay, that's enough now. We're going to really, you know, put our – be very noisy. I like people being very noisy inside companies.

I think it's great for companies. I honestly do. And I think it puts executives on notice that they may need to think a little harder. That's all. That's all. That's okay. I think this has been a really productive dialogue on all sides. I think it's been – you know, I had, I did a caption contest on my Twitter

feed and this really neat woman, I think her name's Leila Srinivasan, came up with a funny caption and she brought attention to this wonderful charity called the Trevor Project that focuses on mental health for LGBTQ youth. And I'm going to get involved in them. And a lot of it, it's because of this dialogue. And what I'd like to think is that we can all decide, all right, we all immediately figure out what our differences are and decide we hate each other. But maybe there's an opportunity to say, well, where is there overlap and agreement? And I think most people can come together and agree that youth who are struggling or persecuted for trying to be who they feel they want to be and results in much greater levels, exponentially greater levels of self-harm and suicide,

that there are great organizations such as the Trevor Project that we can all agree need support and attention. And I would just, I feel like we need to move to where do we agree and how do we come out of this all a better place. But I actually – I generally think this dialogue has been good. I think that's why these groups are very smart is they didn't say he can't make jokes like this. They said what he's done here is very different than that. And so if you get away from that, I'm offended and you can't say things, you have a lot more ability and have a sophisticated – I don't like – it's dangerous to defend Chappelle right now, I think.

But the guy is a genius. He brought up some interesting points. No one says he isn't. He isn't. No one says he isn't. You've watched it. Have you watched it? Yeah, I watched it.

I watched it. It's just not funny. It just wasn't funny. That's the ultimate problem, I think. Anyway, one last thing in this area, PayPal, buying Pinterest. And I think we need to talk about, I need to think about it. The deal could be worth $45 billion. Pinterest has always been an interesting property for purchase to me, whether it was Google or Amazon, et cetera. So it's an interesting thing. I don't quite

understand the PayPal element of it, but perhaps you have a thought, a quick thought. Like this just blew my mind. It just absolutely blew my mind. And that is that, so more unicorns were minted or birthed in the last quarter than in history. And the sector that created the most unicorns was FinTech. And FinTech is literally man bites dog now. And that is one of the biggest, most powerful

and typically or traditionally most profitable sectors in the world, content or media is now no longer a business that in and among itself is supposed to be profitable. It's a point of differentiation for other more profitable or more valuable businesses, whether it's selling more handsets, selling more paper towels, or quite frankly getting you to use a certain payment platform. So you have PayPal. I mean think about this. eBay, which used to be the parent company, is worth $50 billion. PayPal is worth $250 billion. PayPal will file 28 times the number

of patents as Goldman Sachs. It's worth more than Goldman and Morgan Stanley combined. Or is that right? I think it's worth more than Goldman, I think. Anyways, this is now, it's just fascinating. Content has become a point of differentiation, not its own business. And the term everyone's going to be using over the next year is super app. And this absolutely opens up the notion that you're going vertical. purchase, create maybe more of an on-ramp to more signups for PayPal, create another 400 or 500 million people that have easier access to their payment method, and that's worth $50 billion to them?

This is going to shake up the industry, Cara, and this is going to mean— So is there the right purchaser then? You don't see an Amazon moving in here or a Google. That's where I always thought Pinterest was headed towards. They're absolutely overpaying and they should because they have over, they have inflated stock right now. And so-

All right, but why isn't Google or Amazon moving in here? They would be natural purchasers of that company. That is- Because they can't? I think that's a good point. I think they are very,

unless something just makes too much sense, I think they are pretty careful about raising antitrust flags. This would create a whole new vein. Should Amazon be buying a $50 billion? I don't know. I think this would be, I always thought Amazon, remember, I thought Amazon was going to buy Pinterest. I think that was a prediction two years ago. Pinterest is not worth $45 billion, but it might be worth $45 billion to a company like PayPal. And you know what this means, Kara? What? It means Twitter's going to acquire, I'm sorry, it means Square's going to acquire Twitter. And it also is going

to put Snap into play. This is an attention economy and the attention that media captures is worth more to fintech companies than it is to the investors of a pure play media company right now. All right. Well, let's go right to predictions. Is that your prediction this week, that these other companies? And then we'll take questions after this, so start dropping them in chat now. Go ahead, Scott. What is this your prediction, that these will come into place?

You mentioned several, Snap and what else? And where do they go? Well, there's 16 hours of free time a day. And call the industry here worth, I don't know, 16, the total tech industry, call it 16 trillion, a trillion an hour, or about, you know, 100 or 15 billion for every incremental minute you get. So the bet from PayPal is essentially, are we going to get on average across America another three minutes a day from people if we put soapstone and wedding imagery in front

of them? And will that increase our signups and our payment, our GMV volume through the PayPal network? Because we can monetize it at a much greater ratio than them. the PayPal network because we can monetize it at a much greater ratio than them. Twitter and Snap are both, relatively speaking, have a low market cap relative to their attention. And so you're going to see, in addition, it solves the CEO problem. Jack with Square acquiring Twitter.

Square's about $120 billion, I think. Twitter's about $50 billion. And then they're all going to try and position themselves as one thing. Can we all be the next WhatsApp? Can we all be the next Tencent? Can we all be the next Alibaba? Everyone's going to be in a race to be the operating system for our digital future, our digital interface, and the term super app. But this is going to put Snap and Twitter in play. I like the super app idea.

You know, interestingly, oddly enough, I did an interview with Ken Buck, Representative Ken Buck. He's a conservative congressman who's been doing a lot on tech. And it was one of the things he said, he was talking about competition solving all this problem, you know, whether it be bias, whatever. He says, I don't want to talk about that because if we have competition, it'd be great. He goes, what I'd like to see is more company, instead of just having an Amazon and shopping or a Google and search, I'd like essentially super apps. That's what he was saying. If there were a lot of people competing with each other, and he goes, I hate to use the China as the thing. But if there was a company that had a lot of things and a lot of companies like that, he doesn't mind big companies,

he minds big companies in singular areas. And if they had, if they were quite, he was actually quite sophisticated. I was surprised and interested by the idea of that is that Amazon is also in entertainment, is also in search, is also in this, and it competes with Google. Anyway, it was just interesting. I think you're right. I think that's – you're right. They're going to buy – I don't know if – to square buying Twitter, who buys Snapchat? Square buying Twitter. Who buys Snapchat?

Well, the big name here that has the currency and has just sharpened their pencil around their shopping list and has the mother of all credit cards right now is Shopify. I knew you'd say that. And so you're going to see just as Comcast is going to announce a major transaction as Peacock is just not – is a turkey. And they have a quarter of a trillion dollar market cap. They are players. They control distribution. You're going to see some pretty serious deal making, I think, in the next six to 12 months. I think Square taking out Twitter is pretty obvious, but I think Shopify shows up and does something. There are going to be transactions, huge, like transactions like the one today where you kind of go, what? And then you put your head to the side and think, is this either crazy or visionary? Or the answer is probably yes. But the names you're going to see are going to be Shopify, Square, Twitter, and Snap.

Somebody's going to hook up here. Someone is going to be cod making out in the ballroom or the ballbox. What was it we used to sneak into and make out? I forget. Or other people did in high school? I never snuck. I didn't sneak.

Nobody snuck. We did it out in the open. We'll be back in a moment. Stay with us. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill,

and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us,

but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start? Claude from Anthropic may be the answer. Claude is a next-generation AI assistant built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. Anthropic's latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet,

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essence of complex images or graphs, or generate heaps of secure code, Claude is a great Thank you. approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Now we're going to get some questions from the audience at Advertising Week. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. These are coming in via app, so I'll read them aloud. Let me start with one to me. Kara, I know you use Getter. Will you use Truth? I will use all of them. I put my name in, although I'm nervous because I think this is a shifty group of people, and I'm worried about who they are, so I didn't give them very much information. I don't mind

giving people one of my... I have a lot of emails that I use for this kind of thing. And yes, I will try to use it. I will try to use it. I don't think Getter's a bad product. I just think it's hard to, without Donald Trump there, it's going to be hard. And without everybody there, it's going to be hard. And it's hard to scale. Just as what Scott said from A to B.

All right, next one, Scott, for you. Given recent high-profile examples of fraud, Ozzie Theranos, should higher—I'm not sure Ozzie was fraud yet. It's not been proved. So let's say alleged fraud in both cases. Should higher education include ethical standards and practices as part of their curricula? Scott, Professor Galloway? They do. And all they are is departments that have no accountability and give someone who has no real pedagogy or rigor around their courses an excuse to hang out at a university and build a department that has no measurable

outcome. I think other than Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and the work he's doing at Yale, I think leadership departments are a giant waste of money and people looking for no accountability and one of the reasons that tuition has consistently outpaced inflation. I can't get my 14-year-old to do what I want. But the notion that in business schools we're going to take 28-year-olds and make them more ethical people, I think it is just – what's the term? I think it's fucking ridiculous. So what do we do? Come with this illusion instead of crapping all over these things.

I agree with you. I do. I did a story. What do we do, Kara? Chief Ethical Officer. What do we do? Jail. No. Jail is – We provide – we do a bunch these things. I agree with you. I do. I did a story. What do we do, Cara? Chief Ethical Officer. What do we do? Jail. Jail is true. We do a bunch of things. We make sure that that child tax credit stays in the stimulus plan, and we create loving, secure homes for children. We encourage people to pair up and have deep,

meaningful relationships and create secure environments for children. We encourage character. We salute. We encourage character. We salute people that demonstrate character. But the notion that me with a bunch of kids twice a week, that I'm going to impart fucking leadership on them, that is the height of arrogance and self-aggrandizement, which we specialize in in higher ed. These are much deeper issues.

The notion, this is about parenting. It's about a society. It's about putting people in jail when they break the law. But this isn't about – in my opinion, you can highlight things. I think you teach people about psychology. I think you teach them the liberal arts. I think you teach them history. But the notion that we're going to have an individual tell us how to be a leader or to be more ethical, we have ethics classes and orientation at NYU.

Give me a fucking break. Okay, then. Okay. But let me just give you, my most important course in college was one I took freshman year, and it was about existentialism. And it was about ethics. It really was.

It was, you know what I mean? But that's philosophy. That's my point. Yes, yes. It was philosophy. And so it was a really, to this day, it makes me think. And being exposed to a lot of ethical issues and discussing them among people was incredibly helpful.

I think the problem is we allow computer scientists to just do that. We don't give them the wider historical or societal or psychology or philosophy. That is what happens. And so people get put into these sort of tracks that allow them not to understand a more, and then when they're faced with it, when they're working, they have none of the tools or any of the background necessary to understand what's happening, except in a really twitchy way, you know, and so they're both stupid and powerful at the same time, or uneducated and powerful. So I agree, they have these chief ethical officers at some companies, and I think, unfortunately,

it's like they sit in a sit. Nobody listens to them is really what happens. You want to improve the leadership and ethics of tomorrow's generation? Fund after-school sports. It forces teamwork. It forces character. It forces discipline. It forces empathy.

But instead, I'm going to take a 27-year-old and say, okay, this is how you act like a leader. So we do not agree with this question, questioner. All right. Last question. What is DotDash thinking – we just have a few minutes – buying Meredith? Scott? Look, it's the same thing to a certain extent. It's the same phenomenon PayPal buying for Pinterest.

These are brands and content. They have great content that commands people's attention. They have an infrastructure to produce content, but they're in a shitty business model called the advertising industrial complex. Hello, advertising week. So they can take those brands and that content and they have slimmed down. They've gotten in good shape. Meredith's is a really well-run organization. It's also known as a content company that understands databases and they get to pick it up at, I don't know, 70 times EBITDA. And Meredith gets to get the hell out of Dodge and pivot to a different business model. So you're going to see a lot of these kind of old economy content companies that

have a following. Which have value. Which have value. Yeah. Yeah. This makes sense to me. So should we get bought by Bank of America then? I'm ready. I'm ready. Who would you like? If we had to get bought. I want to be in those commercials. I want to be in those banking commercials where they bring in like ridiculously hot

young people and spray gray sideburns on them and pretend they're retiring. All right. We could do one together. That would be, that would I'm sure sell a lot of bank accounts. Anyway. Oh my God. It would be so bad. That's right. It would be so bad. That's right. We would do, you know, I'm sure, sell a lot of bank accounts. Anyway. Oh, my God. It would be so bad. That's right.

It would be so bad. That's right. We would do, you know, I always like the lesbian couples they have in there. They're really, like, seem really smart and they're always sort of happy and running around. Happy and hip. Yeah. Happy and hip. Yeah.

Anyway, we have to wrap it up. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more. There's a lot of news this week and we have a lot to follow up on. Thank you to the folks at Advertising Week and Stillwell Partners. Scott, can you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ernie Indretot, engineer of this episode.

Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next Tuesday for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Advertising week, stick around. The next panel is a 73-year-old Sally Draper who's going to talk about her relationship with men after her father emotionally abandoned her and her mother died of cancer. That's up next. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic.

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