Pivot - LIVE! From NYC it's Kara and Scott

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

Kara and Scott meet up in New York City for an extra, unfiltered Pivot in front of a live audience. They recap some of the news already happening this week like "The Business Roundtable" redefining their mission statement to include stakeholders. Kara and Scott revisit some of the wins and fails of the the first half of 2019. And they take on burning questions from the audience. WARNING: this episode contains more expletives than usual. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And you've been so bad, you've been good. And it's time for an extra episode because you've earned it. You're welcome. We met up in New York City in front of a live audience. Scott managed not to get killed by someone to do an extra unfiltered episode.

So it's very lively. I don't know. Did you see the audience? I would call it sort of live. OK. Let's get to it. Live from New York, it's Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. Boom!

So, Scott, we're here live in New York. We are. It's great to see you, Kara. It's very warm here. It is. It's hot and stuff like that. So, you've been're here live in New York. We are. It's great to see you, Carrie. It's very warm here. It is. It's very hot and stuff like that. So you've been away. I was away.

We were both on vacation, although we did a couple of pivots. Yep. But there's so much news. There is. I'm not sure where to start. But how is your vacation going? I left the shark zone of Cape Cod. How are you still doing?

You mean Amityville? Yes. Look, I'm a wreck, and I've been... I want to swim in the pool. Right, I got that. I got that. How are you going to get in the pool unless it's like a James Bond? By the way, James Bond is coming back for the 25th film. It was announced today. Move along.

Back to me. All right, okay. Sorry. You and sharks. Go ahead. So, fear, right? It's not about the agent of fear. It's about the delivery, right? So we all know the stats about sharks. No. But the idea, well, the bottom line is about 30 times as many people will die having a vending machine fall on them and crush them this year than being eaten by a shark.

But I would rather, much rather, like have a vending machine crush me than... So death by Twix bar is preference. I learned to surf in the Bay Area and then a kid had a chunk of his leg taken off by a great white and they said, don't worry in surfing lessons because what happens is the shark, the great white, mistakes you for a seal, takes you into his mouth and then realizing you're not a seal, spits you out. I would rather die than have that experience. Wouldn't you just rather have a seal come up to you with an AK-47, at some point seals are going to have access to AK-47s, and just kill you before actually having a great white

clamp down on you in that moment of decision? Is this my food chain or not? Anyway, so Amityville fucking sucked. I'm glad to be back. All right. Back to you. All right. Thank you.

So, you know, there is some, like, stories. I was looking. There's a debate. Should locals deploy buoys or drones to detect sharks? Yeah. There's all kinds of things. If they should get rid of the seals, what should happen? Is there a tech solution to the shark situation?

Yeah, they kill the seals and the sharks. Okay, alright. Oh, no. In any case, Scott, there's lots of news for us to talk about. I want to talk about just briefly something I tweeted today that got a lot of attention. What was that, Kara? It was a photograph

of a white dude not getting up for a pregnant lady on the subway. And it set off a frigging firestorm. And I said, you might want to look up and see this pregnant person in front of you. And so it was really interesting because all the women had a million stories of this, anyone who's been pregnant, including myself, of people not getting up and who got up for you and who didn't get up for you. And so there was a lot of ire towards this man who wouldn't get up.

And at the same time, there was a whole passel of men who were like, one, why didn't you just ask? Why didn't you know, why don't you just say something like the person on the phone? And the second one is, how do you like gender equality now? And I'm not sure how that has anything to do with getting up for people in distress. And the other one was, what was the third one? I've never seen it. Men always get up for women on buses. So just as general advice to men here, you should just, as a rule, never assume, unless you see the head crowning, that a woman is pregnant. So it's just going to lead somewhere bad. Oh, it's clearly going to be a girl. And I'm like, what? Secondly, it sounds like your friend

has committed the, broken the rule, like what happens on the subway, like Vegas, stays on the subway. No, no, not so. And you're one of the few people that actually read that sign that says if you see something, say something. No, don't say a fucking thing.

We're on the subway, all right? And you think that's the worst thing that's happened to you on the subway? This is no joke. I'm on the R train six months ago and a man begins masturbating. And that is not the most disturbing part of this disturbing story. He catches my eye and you know what he says? Scott? Absorb that for a moment. Absorb what I'm thinking. When I know the R train masturbator.

And I'm like, oh shit, it's Steve from Hot Yoga. So yeah, okay, guy doesn't get up for a pregnant woman, blah, blah, blah. I know Steve the masturbator on the R train. Thank you, Trinets. All right. the masturbator on the archery. Thank you, Trinets. Alright. I'm not sure how to recover from that one, except to say, what do you think of shaming on Twitter?

Which people accuse me of shaming someone on Twitter. This is about to take a turn for the much more serious. I was in Rwanda, and I'm fascinated with death and genocide. I'm like, you know, at night, the way I relax is I watch Netflix documentaries about the crimes against humanity that we've levied against each other. And they have this process in Rwanda post-genocide. They're like,

if there's any way to exact equivalent revenge, we're just never going to recover as a society. So they have this process by which people come into a village where people have killed perpetrators or genociders, I think as they call them, and they ask what can be done to forgive this person and reintegrate them. And it's kind of this long process. And I think the only way we're gonna get past

this shaming culture where all of us do everything that's on our permanent file and there's an industry that like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the media is attracted towards violence and conflict and the potential to shame each other, is if we also develop some sort of process for reintegrating and forgiving people. Because the thing I love about being an academic, and I think there's a lesson to be taken here, is that academics, our goal, or what we're supposed to do, is we're supposed to provoke and challenge people and say offensive things in the pursuit of truth. But we can't do that.

My career would have been over if I didn't have the suffix or the prefix of professor, because I've said some not only provocative things, I've said some stupid things that are wrong. And the wonderful thing about academia is you're given license to do that, and at some point we have to provide that blanket and that process for reintegration back into society as opposed to just being gotcha all the goddamn time. Well, here's the thing, though. point we have to provide that blanket and that process for reintegration back into society as

opposed to just being gotcha all the goddamn time well here's the thing though charlie wurzel wrote about that today in the new york times actually i think it's called something justice does someone know who that is retribution justice or something like that where you bring what they did is they took three people in a on a reddit a reddit area on christian And there were three people who were constant offenders. And one was against gays and lesbians. One was an atheist. And the other, just an asshole, I think. And it didn't work with two of them.

They did not get nicer. And what they did is they brought them into these groups and had them discuss the stuff. And the gay and lesbian guy was just terrible as usual and didn't care. The only one that worked was one. And he said, I didn't realize I was being an asshole. It turns out I was the one causing the problems. So it's really, it's sort of an artisanal way of getting people to stop. And when you have the internet, which is so amplified, which continues to iterate, iterate, iterate, it's really hard to be able to not do that. And you see that sort of almost constantly, which I will turn to our first news story, which was this week.

President Trump continued in his typically inaccurate quotes talking about Google shifting the election. And he said millions of votes were shifted by Google based on a disputed report that was very disputed it was based on 21 people and the guy who created the report was like that's not what I meant to say and it was simply was about Google putting a vote now button on on the homepage which they were saying that Democrats would respond to it better than Republicans apparently by just suggesting voting. And so it was a really interesting thing that he did this.

And then Hillary Clinton responded, which was interesting, saying in context, this was a disputed report and it was just 21 people, which is about, I think in context, about half as many people have been indicted in your administration, which I thought was genius. She's sort of sitting over there going, yeah, today's the day. And so it was interesting. So I called him a liar today on Morning Joe, that this is a lie, this is a thing.

Of the many things Google manipulates, and of which there are many, this is not one of them. But Trump is sort of on this Google is treason, Google is this, and stuff like that. What do you think about that? Well, you've written about this, and we know people, all of us know people at Google and Facebook, and if you know these people

and you know their priorities and you know the approach they take and the result they take at work, they don't lean left, they don't lean right, they lean down. They're uber-capitalists. They've promoted and taken ads from people paying in rubles, and they just look down and ignore it because they're uber-capitalists, which some people see as a good thing. In addition, if you go one level deeper,

the genius of Google and Facebook as platforms is that they're impossible to master. Can anybody here name a company that's developed long-term sustainable advantage through the mastery of Google or Facebook? Nike developed tens of billions of dollars in advantage mastering television as a medium. Williams-Sonoma created billions of dollars in shareholder value, sustainable competitive advantage,

mastering the medium of catalogs. There hasn't been a single company nor a political party that has mastered these platforms to their advantage. Their genius is they democratize the tools and best practices such that they have not become tools. They've become taxes everybody has to pay. Everybody gets out a little bit ahead. Oh, I have a gym. I bought some Google keywords. It worked for a little while. Then the gym across the street bought them because I have a series of salespeople who share all best practices, all industry advantage to create what is the ultimate tax on our economy. And that is if you wanted the mother of all tax cuts, you would ban all advertising from Facebook and Google. So you're saying they're like arms dealers, which is what I've called them, like arms dealers of the digital age.

They're perfectly egalitarian platforms. It doesn't matter how good you are, right? You can't, remember how Burberry was supposed to be the digital brand? The best of Instagram, yeah. And guess what? Everyone caught up. So their genius isn't that they're tools

that create advantage. They're essentially attacks. You don't use this to gain advantage. You use this because they've become table stakes and you have to be on Google and Facebook, which, from my mind, means they're no longer tools. They're just taxes. So they're not treasonous.

They're not what? Treasonous. So first off... Well, they're not treasonous. I'm just repeating a ridiculous thing. Look, if at some point you'd like to think that people have enough concern for the Commonwealth, that they would decide, all right, rather than letting our platform be weaponized by Russians and our platform gets perverted and we probably elect an illegitimate president and this illegitimate president appoints people to the Supreme Court who are slowly but surely eroding a woman's rights to save family planning. who are slowly but surely eroding a woman's rights to save family planning, and then in order to put that lipstick on that cancer,

we send out someone telling women to lean in. You'd think at some point they would connect the dots. Oh, trust me, it's going to get worse. You'd think at some point someone would connect the dots and go, okay, maybe we do in fact decide that we have some regard for the Commonwealth and that this constant virtue signaling wrapped in a hypocrisy sandwich, somebody at some point will say enough hasn't happened. The FTC chairman said maybe the merging of Instagram, WhatsApp may have been a tactic to keep from breaking it up,

which is sort of a no shit kind of thing. Well, here's the issue. And this goes to a little bit to a story from the business roundtable today. We can wait for better angels to call on the leaders of these organizations. We can wait for consumers to wake up and decide they don't want that little black dress for $9.99, which by virtue of a little black dress being $9.99 means there's unethical supply chain behavior. Don't hold your breath. The reason we elect officials and pay $0.23 on the dollar is we want them to prevent a tragedy to the commons and think long term.

And they're supposed to regulate these companies because a better business model is for automobile manufacturers to pour mercury into the rivers. A better business model is to delay and obfuscate and continue to take ads from Russians and anyone who will pay for this business model that divides our society. The Facebook fine of $5 billion, that was almost perfect. It was missing a zero.

If the FTC had fined Facebook $50 billion, the next day, every media platform in this nation would have been, okay, shit just got real. We got to figure this out. And the brightest minds in the world, be clear, would have figured this out. Instead, they were high-fiving each other because the amount of the fine was surpassed by their stock going up. We have implicitly told every one of these companies that the shareholder-driven thing to do, the smart thing to do, is to break the law. If there was a parking meter in front

of this building that cost $100 every 15 minutes, but the parking ticket was 25 cents, everyone in this room would break the law. Everyone in here is capitalists. 3% of you will build wells in Africa, will be good people. The rest of us will focus on affixing our own masks first. But we will pay 23 cents on the dollar and hope that politicians think for us long term, which they are not doing. Which they are not doing. But are the business leaders doing that? So this week, the Business Roundtable, which is led by Jamie Diamond, pledged to uphold stakeholder values, including employees, the environment, consumers, and various and sundry people.

Is this a new dawn of capitalist philosophy? This is something I interviewed Shoshana Zuboff from Harvard, who wrote a book called Surveillance Capitalism, which is all about the shift to shareholder focus in the past two decades, essentially. Milton Friedman was a big part of that. What did you think of this? Why did they suddenly do this? Because

Jamie Dimon isn't someone that strikes me as friendly to anybody but Jamie Dimon. Well, it's self-preservation. Maybe I'm misreading the situation. Look, it's self-preservation. Maybe I'm misreading the situation. Look, it's self-preservation because when income inequality traditionally throughout history gets to these levels, people show up

with pitchforks and they start killing rich people. And so at some point, the wealthy people have to decide that it's in our best interest to not have this level of income inequality. And the idea of stakeholder value isn't a new one. No, it's an old one. It's, you know, there's, there are a lot of CEOs who have approached business this way, but here's, here's the problem. You know, you, okay. So the guy, this is literally like arsonists talking

about putting out fires, right? Oh, it's Jamie Dimon, who is gonna collect $123 million in fees from WeWork to flee feces on the retail investors visiting the unicorn zoo when he takes WeWork public. Oh, oh, but we need to act more ethically. Yeah, he makes $31 million a year. Google now has more temps, 121,000, than full-time employees, 102,000, of which they don't provide any benefits.

And they can't even go to the best cafeteria there with the finest kombucha. There's more corporate freelance contract workers, gig workers everywhere. So why did they do this? This is just essentially bullshit. I'm feeling that that's what your mood is. Look, words matter. did they do this? This is just essentially bullshit. I'm feeling that that's what your mood is. Look, words matter. And the zeitgeist in our nation around this notion that shareholder value beyond anything, it's worth repeating that we have stakeholders, not just shareholders. So I do think there's some positive value. But at the end of the day, you have to have federally mandated $15 an

hour minimum wage because no firm wants to disarm unilaterally. When you have a capital gains tax that is half as regular income tax, we've decided that wealthy people should have more incentive to cheat than people just making money vis-a-vis salary. When you get to this point of income inequality, what you're doing is we've created all these incentives that say as you get wealthier, the incentives to cheat become greater as opposed to lesser. Also, there's very few disincentives. Who went to jail from the financial crisis? Who's going to go to jail from the weaponizations of the greatest experiment or the perversion of the greatest Facebook in jail? Bombas.

I don't know. I'm not. That's not. That wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on. Why not? What do you mean it wouldn't be inappropriate? You literally are close to making 17 possibly questionable remarks. I don't know if anybody's. I'm choosing my words very carefully. I don't know if anybody's,

I'm choosing my words very carefully. I don't know if anyone's broken the law. I think the guilty party is not Mark Zuckerberg or Shel Stamberg. I think the guilty party is us who have decided not to put in place the laws that have regulated companies in the past. Do you see any sign that that's going to happen right now? Yeah, they're being broken up.

I think the breakup of big tech has started. All right, who's the first one to go? Well, what do you think? I've been doing all the talking. That's our relationship. I prompt you. I actually kind of like it. It feels like Gene Martin and Jerry Lewis, essentially.

You know how that's going to end. You don't like to admit this, but our relationship is much deeper than that. Really? Much deeper than that. No, it's going to end. You don't like to admit this, but our relationship is much deeper than that. Really? Much deeper than that. No, it's not. Anyways. I have other boyfriends, so to speak.

This is getting so awkward. I know, it's true. All right, I think they're going to pull Instagram off of Facebook. I think that's probably what I'd be. Yeah, but as... Or YouTube off of Google. As we've talked,

so what is Mark Zuckerberg trying to do? And this is, literally, there was a disturbance in the force a couple weeks ago. And every marketing professor in Europe and North America had a grand mal seizure when Mark Zuckerberg said that he was doing away with, essentially, WhatsApp and Instagram as independent brands. And it was going to be WhatsApp by Facebook and Instagram by Facebook, which is literally like Boeing announcing, I know, let's call the 777 the 777 Max because the 737 Max is going so well.

Or if all of a sudden they said, I know, let's do Porsche by Volkswagen because we own it. This was literally heresy. What this comes down to is it's another reflection of the fact that the era of brand, the sun has passed midday, where these incredible assets called brand that create tens of billions in shareholder value have seeded way to the monopoly era which are worth hundreds of billions so you'd rather sacrifice these unbelievable brands called whatsapp and Instagram in order to decrease the likelihood even 1% that we get our monopoly

broken up. So I think this was actually a brilliant move, but it's another reflection that Don Draper has not only been dead, he's been drawn and quartered. We have left the brand era, and we are now in the monopoly era. And what Mark Zuckerberg is trying to do is conjoin triplets such that when the FTC and DOJ move in, he can say, wait, you're ruining American business and capitalism. Because if we're going to separate these triplets, you're going to kill all of us. So he's trying to conjoin them as quickly as possible. I'm disappointed that the DOJ and the FTC didn't go on background and say, look, boss, whatever you decide to do, be clear. We can break your ass up.

Yeah, that's interesting. I think it will be probably Google and YouTube, if I had to pick right now. Google and YouTube. A spin of YouTube. Yeah, a spin of YouTube. It makes a lot of sense. We'll see. There have been some troubles at Google lately in running it

and some lot of sort of negative articles about their management. So I think moving YouTube off is a smart move. Yeah, you've always thought. And the logic is there are 93% share. Think about process. There's some incredible research coming out about the notion of process and how we make decisions, right? Kahneman and a bunch of other interesting behavioral economists. What's the most important process in the world?

Is it when a solar flare comes off that 90 million, you know, mile diameter ball of radiation that creates all life? Is it the moment of conception that creates so much controversy, which is obviously a wonderful thing? Or is it the moment when intention becomes action? When you go from someone who's upset about your government and you type in overthrow government into Google, is the first search return you get a voter registration form? Or is it instructions on how to build a dirty bomb? One firm controls 93% of those decisions. And one of the keys to a healthy society is checks and balances,

that we have diversity of opinions, that someone's saying, no, that's not the first search decision they should see. It's someone else. So we have outsourced 93%. If you don't think Google is your God, as society has become more educated and wealthy, their reliance on a super being, or as I like to call it, an invisible friend, goes down.

But our void of questions goes up, and so who do we return? Who's our new God? Google's our God. Well, I don't know God. I would say it's the database of human intentions, if you want to think about it, because what you type into it matters. You know, years ago, and Google doesn't do this anymore, but if you went to Google's headquarters, you would see a constant...

Now they put them on steps for visiting potentates. But what they would do is they put the searches that were happening in real time. They removed the porn ones, which were quite a bit, apparently. I've never searched those. And they would put what people were searching in real time. And you'd sort of sit there. I used to have to wait for Larry and Sergey to finish their Pilates for the day.

And it would be like horses, wrenches, caftans. And you're like, what does that person want? I would sit there and say, what do they want? What is their intention? Horses, wrenches, caftans. And you're like, what does that person want? Like, I would sit there and say, what do they want? What is their intention? What are they looking for? Some of them were very typical, which was the news of the day. But it was really fascinating. I used to think it literally is a database of all human intentions and what they want to do.

And what the really interesting part of it was, they also had this globe. I've told this story before, but it was really fascinating. They had a globe. It was told this story before, but it was really fascinating. They had a globe. It was a 3D globe at the time. A 3D was not something that was around super early. And what would happen is light would go off the globe. And the amount of questions that people were asking Google would be the amount of light coming off of a certain area.

And it would depend on the time and day and stuff like that. But the whole world was super glowing. And the united states and the cities were lots of questions the midwest almost don't quite it was fascinating to see it was really interesting no it was it was like whoa there's not asking questions so it's all about people who weren't asking questions and who were asking questions and which i found fascinating when you spun the globe around, though, because they didn't have linkages to the internet, Africa was actually dark. Like, you did no light except in tiny little areas. Kenya, a little bit in Kenya, a little bit down in South Africa.

But they had very little light coming off. And it was really interesting, because I remember sitting there and one of the two of them came over. I'm like, this is really fascinating. And one of them, and I cannot tell them apart, was like, do you think they're not asking questions in these countries, or is it because they can't? And it was the one time I thought, oh, my God, they're actually thoughtful. And it was a really interesting question, but I agree with you.

It's not God, but it's a database of intentions. It's 100% our God. Be clear. Anyone who has kids, anyone who has kids has prayed. You have your world of work. You have your world of stuff. Something comes off the tracks of one of your kids. You get religion.

You start praying. Will my kid be all right? And what is a prayer? A prayer is a query into the universe hoping for some sort of divine intervention that sees everything, that gives you back an answer you can trust. And it used to be, will my kid be all right? Now it's symptoms and treatment of croup into the Google dialogue box. If you don't think Google is your God, if you don't think Google is your God, Google knows when you're about to get engaged. It knows when you're about to get divorced. It

knows your sexual fetishes. It knows the diseases you're worried about. It knows the diseases you're worried about having exposed yourself to. You trust Google more than any priest, rabbi, scholar, mentor, or boss. Google is our God, full stop. And it's time to have more than one God. Okay, who's your devil then? Deep thoughts. Deep thoughts. I don't know, opioids. I don't know. Okay, all right. All right, Two more things. Has anyone been into a goop? That's Satan. That's directly from Satan.

All right. Seriously. That shit's from Satan. Two more things this week. Facebook and Twitter. Opioids and goop. You have a choice. Listen to me. Listen.

I need commentary on two. One of two things, you get a choice. One, Facebook and Twitter say China is spreading disinformation in Hong Kong. By the way, go Hong Kong. The companies took down a social media campaign from the Chinese government that undermined protesters. Twitter says it won't accept advertisements from

state-controlled media outlets. That might actually be a Twitter win for once. The other choice you have we can talk about is the mooch going on the offensive against the president on Twitter. Your choice. You know the mooch. Let's talk about the mooch. Give us your sense of all things mooch right now. Mooch. Here know the mooch. Let's talk about the mooch. Give us your sense of all things mooch right now. Mooch.

Here's the deal. I find it fascinating that a lot of these people, including the guy who owns SoulCycle, a lot of these different publics, I know, right? I have to stop doing SoulCycle now, unfortunately. And then, of course, he also invested in Rumble. I went to Equinox today. Get over it. Okay. No, you

said you weren't going to go. You have to separate people from their ideology. Are we going to commit economic warfare against 49% of America? Oh, no. Yes, we are. In fact, we are. In any case. Grow up.

You know what? Sorry, go ahead. You still have back fat. I do. I do. Look, I'm 54, but but naked I look 53 and 7 8 I welcome his situation I welcome him talking about it

but I don't think you can have a la carte decision making on someone like Trump I think you can't say I don't like his racism how hard is that to say come on and, I do like this, I don't like this. When you get the full benefits, I find that offensive.

So I've told him that for a long time. I'm going to have him back on the podcast. We're going to talk about it. I just texted him. No one escapes that orbit of Trump not soiled and kind of ruined. But it's interesting. He's pitting hard on Twitter and he's pitting hard in the media. He plays that way too

so it'll be interesting to see them go at it. Yeah, but I think these people have decided, like Trump, they'd rather be accused of something terrible than be out of the media cycle for more than 24 hours. Yeah, but see, that's the easy, yes, I agree but here's the deal. The way you fud someone is to say, even if they're saying the truth, that

their intentions are wrong. I don't care if, you know, today George Conway called Trump vile scum or in a very witty little even if they're saying the truth, that their intentions are wrong. I don't care. Today, George Conway called Trump vile scum, in a very witty little tweet he did. But it sounds terrible, but it was actually a very funny tweet, using vile scum. And what was interesting about it is that he's the only one that's really actually saying things that are quite firm and regular. And so you don't always get the truth teller you want necessarily,

but it's interesting when these people who are familiar with the situation do talk about it. I think it's interesting. I think it'll be interesting to see if it matters to anybody at all or if it's just preaching to the choir. Well, back to Daniel Kahneman, the behavioral economist who's my new Yoda. He says that we don't make decisions. We make decisions about the reasons or don't make decisions, we make decisions about the reasons or the story around decisions, right? So remember Gary Cohen? We're down on Wall

Street. I'm thinking about Goldman Sachs. Was he Treasury Secretary or Chief Economic? I can't remember. But he decided when Trump said there were good people on both sides, that he got a lot of grief from his congregation. He's Jewish, and he got past that crazy bigotry and racism that other than everything he says and does, I don't think Trump's a racist. But he decided he could survive that. But then when Trump proposed tariffs, he's like, that's it, one man can only take so much. And so it's like, the free trader in me likes Gary Cohen, the Jew, not so much. And so it's like, you know, the free trader in me likes Gary Cohn, the Jew not so much. But anyways, that was ugly.

Here we have the mooch who's all of a sudden decided he doesn't like Trump. No, he doesn't. The only thing he has no tolerance for is being out of the media cycle. And so let's talk, can we skip to a story versus the reality? Can we talk about, this is the reality? Can we talk about this?

This is the six month anniversary of Amazon deciding they were pulling out of New York. Yes. Right. Yes. We are in New York right now. We are. Here's the story. Amazon thinks we need a second headquarters.

Let's let's think about this thoughtfully. Let's think about what city wants us the most, where there's the most universities, where what city would, among other things, maybe help us provide some subsidies. And let's have this contest, and let's put together a team, and let's see, let's let the best city emerge. And then they pick New York, and then New York comes in, and a bunch of crazy liberals chase them out of New York,

and they pick up their tent and they leave. Okay, that's the story. And I think the media is largely bought into that narrative. This is how it played out. A 54-year-old man with $150 billion thinks, I want to roll in New York and D.C. He always knew that. He always knew that. It was always coming here.

And by the way, I predicted this in January. I'm not preaching. I just understand how a 54-year-old man thinks. Okay? And here's the thing. With $150 billion. Here's the thing. This is what happens when you get more money.

You start getting some money, and you start seeing the end. And both of those things have happened to me. You become the master of no. You get to say no more often than anyone else. So does the master of no, who can say no more to anything and anybody in the world decide, I know, I'm going to spend 14 weeks a year rolling in Columbus, Ohio? It's a very nice city. So he was always coming to New York. He was always coming to DC. They announced New York,

the worst poker players in the world, total incompetence. Mayor de Blasio, who I know, who should run for president, said no one ever. By the way, I'm thinking I'm really hoping for an all New York ticket between Kirsten Gillibrand and Mayor de Blasio. Let's call it the brighten up a room by leaving a ticket. Okay, de Blasio and Cuomo, the worst poker players in the world, give $3 billion to a guy in the mother of all midlife crises, which by the way I think he's going to grow out of in about 40 or 50 years. Let's give him $3 billion.

And then this is a rare victory of the grassroots against big tech. They showed up in the town that has got the greatest proportion of union members in this nation, Queens, said, are you going to let the factories unionize this, or will you actively fight it? They said, we'll actively fight it. And they said, not here, girlfriend. And they kicked him out. And by the way, here's the data.

Yeah, supposedly Amazon's left. Taylor, who's here in the back, who works with me at Section 4, ran the data on LinkedIn. at Section 4 ran the data on LinkedIn. Amazon in New York has 850 open job requisitions right now versus a quarter of that at Google and Apple. In the last six months, since they announced they were leaving, Amazon has hired an additional 1,000 people and another 500 people in AWS.

In exchange for $3 billion, they were going to bring 10,000 jobs over four years. They are ahead of that hiring pace right now. And we didn't have to give them a fucking red cent because we said no. All right. So you were right. Your prediction was right. We're moving to predictions.

I let him rant. I never let anybody talk, but this guy I enjoy. So we've been very judgy over the last few months, six months. Then we're going to get to the people in a second. We're going to go slightly over. Some winners for you. Patagonia refusing to sell vests to tech bros. That was a great prediction.

Bezos medium post calling out his dick pic bullies at the National Enquirer. Well done, Scott. Megan Rapinoe in general. Awesome. Awesome. I hadinoe in general. Awesome. Awesome. I had some winners and losers. The FTC's $5 billion parking ticket, which is what I dubbed it in the New York Times.

Yep. The time Representative Steve King didn't know that Google doesn't make the iPhone, but he's done so much fantastic work since. It's hard. You know what? Occasionally you're going to get it wrong. Occasionally.

So of all these winners and losers, before we get to the questions, what do you think the biggest winner and the biggest loser was? I think about companies. So I love Walmart and Disney because I think they're punching back. I love to see all the comedy companies.

I know that's boring. Punching back against Amazon. They're about to launch a streaming service. I like Walmart a lot. I think they're doing interesting things. God, that just felt so flat. I should have something better than that. You have no other bigger winner? That's alright, Disney. You love Bob Iger. That's your latest

man crush. Yeah. Him and his cashmere ways. He is the cashmere prince. I think we should roll. I take him to La Esquina, maybe Cafe Select because I think that's how me and Bobby would roll in the city. He's not going to hang out with you. I don't want to say I know him.

Who are your winners? My winners? Nobody. Nobody's winning right now. Yeah, nobody? No, I think some things that have happened in terms of uh i i think the media pressing back uh starting to really wake up to the facebook google stuff i'm glad they have gotten on board the fdc and the doj yes well okay all right um and my loser is congress not doing their jobs not doing their job yeah i think that's right pretty much they are they have the power to do this stuff.

These agencies have the power to do this. They can blame Trump, which they should, because he's hardly doing anything. And especially right now, I was on a show this morning with the FEC chairman, the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub, and she's the only one actually pushing back on some of this stuff. And I think the thing that she pressed was the legislation that Moscow Mitch is not passing around foreign influence in elections is critical. And the fact that this that they can't do this and it's become partisan is really depressing. And it's really problematic of all the legislation, the breakups they'll get to and everything else.

But this legislation protect us from foreign influence with an upcoming election is disturbing, especially online. And so, therefore, I think what they should do is just ban all political advertising from online sites. Agreed. Alright, so, Soon, you have any other winners or losers? My big loser is, again,

back to Amazon. I think gamifying the Commonwealth, which is nothing, I mean, when you think about this process, it was nothing but an elegant transfer of wealth from municipal fire, school and police districts to Amazon shareholders. And I think it just reflects a lack of character and code in the part

of Jeff Bezos and his board. Right. He looks good, though. He's jacked. Yeah. He does. He looks good. He looks good. Yeah. Did you see those pictures on the on the boat i didn't see those oh no i did with david geffen and all the the other yeah yeah good stuff yeah no back fat there good stuff he doesn't go to equinox all right scott we're so hilarious live we need to do a quick breather we'll be back to the live show after this quick break.

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All right. So we're going to do some live questions from the audience. Instead of making predictions, we're going to get some from you and questions. By the way, just while we're waiting, you should never have a big event without inviting Canadians. Where are my Canadians? They're in the back from Halifax. Word, I met them at

a bar last night. Oh my god. By the way, just if you want to meet people who are emotionally secure super friendly and if they get sick will not be bankrupted and go to a good university the american dream is alive it's just alive in canada welcome welcome canadians hello canadians all right question first by the way andrew ross Sorkin is a spy for the Canadian government. Just so you know. Just so you know it's true. Oh, I love Andy Ross. I do too.

Spy. Don't say anything. He had a good column today chastising the power people he enjoys talking to all the time. If you were moderating political debates, what questions would you ask that haven't come up, Scott? Oh, my God. Where to start? Okay, so you want open borders. There's a billion people who want to come to the U.S. Does that mean we no longer have a process for legal immigration? Does that mean you're a sucker if you actually go through

the process of trying to get here legally? That'd be my first question. I know it's not cool not to endorse open borders. I think it's ridiculous that the Democratic candidates would basically, we shouldn't demonize undocumented workers, but at the same time, we shouldn't turn everyone coming here and saying they're here for asylum into saints. The murder rates in Central America plummeted, yet applications for asylum have gone up. There's some nuance here.

Oh, we want to give free college to everybody? You know what that is? That's a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, because 80% of kids in the wealthiest households go to college. Only a third of kids from poor households go to college. So you want to transfer more wealth to the rich? Then yeah, make college free for everybody. What the fuck are they thinking? At some point, Democratic candidates have to double down on capitalism. We have mistaken cronyism for capitalism. That's what we have on the right. We have to embrace capitalism. We believe in a certain level of winners and losers,

but without any empathy, we can't level the playing field. So, yeah, my question for Democratic candidates is the following. Step up to the plate and start endorsing the greatest sources of good in the history of mankind, and that is the American middle class and capitalism. Thank you. Back to you. All right.

What would you ask? Thank you. Thank you, Bernie Sanders. What would you ask? Thank you very much. Would I ask? What would you ask? I would probably ask about tech because I'm like that. Like, what are they going to do?

I would ask about tech. I'm never going to get are they going to do? I would ask about tech. I'm never going to get to it. They haven't brought it up much. They really haven't brought it up much. They haven't brought it up at all. It's not a big thing. It's not a big topic, I think. If you were still, Cara, if you were still a daily reporter, what would you be interested in covering? I was just talking

to Scott about that backstage. I would like to see if I can get someone else fired, like the Uber guy. I don't know. There's a couple companies. Who I would like to see if I can get someone else fired, like the Uber guy. I don't know. There's a couple companies. Who would you like to see fired right now? I would like Mark to move to chairman of Facebook. I'd like them to put a professional CEO.

What about Cheryl? Should she be fired? I think she's hardly the point. As I've written, I think he's the CEO. No, I'm not going down this road with you because he has full control of the company, just like the WeWork guys has. The WeWork guy has. All these substandard juvenile men who have complete control of companies is a problem. I think they should be accountable.

You've fallen into the same trap that's the perversion of high tech. Women have to navigate this Hunger Games to get to the C-suite in technology. And once they're there, they become a protected class. We need more female CEOs such that we don't have an existential crisis every time we try and fire one. Let me just say, because women really are the problem in tech. That's how I look at it.

Please. Give me a break. It's him. He controls everything. I look at the person with the power. Kick up the chairman. She should be fired. He's got the big guns. He's the same one. Fantasy, Silicon Valley. Who do you replace Zuckerworth for Facebook's CEO? Brad Smith, the CEO of Microsoft? Good one.

Great guy. I'm about to do a big podcast with him. He's written a new book that's driven. He's thoughtful, smart. Agreed. All right. Scott, with the coming recession in mind, where should I put my money? Yeah, Scott, with the coming recession.

The definition of a recession is something that happens every 7 to 10 years. The terrible thing about recessions is they always happen. The great thing about them is they always go away. And it feels to me that in an effort to stave off what every capitalist nightmare seems to be, a recession, we're pulling prosperity forward. And that is we're issuing more debt. We're keeping interest rates artificially low. So yeah, take our medicine, it's okay, but don't give our kids this huge debt to pay back, which is only going to increase the depth

of recessions they have to incur. We've been through recessions before, we'll get this. But you asked me where to put your money. This is a boring answer. Traditionally, if you look at markets since World War II, the U.S. outperforms Europe and South America for 10 to 15 years, and then it flips. So if you think that America's been on an 11-year bull market, and I don't like to make stock recommendations because I believe the only stocks you need to own are unregulated monopolies. I own Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. And by the way, everyone says, well, that's hypocritical. No, it's not. I don't want to be some professor in tie-dye barking at the moon. Daddy's flying back to Nantucket tomorrow.

Anyways, unregulated monopolies are the best stocks to own. But on a macro basis, rotating, I think the U.S. is probably going to underperform. There's always the most powerful, one of the most powerful forces in the universe is regression in the main. I think Latin America and Europe will probably outperform the US over the next 10 to 15 years. That's a very, very boring answer. All right.

Any one company? You're not going to buy WeWork though, right? Oh my God. Did someone mention we what the fuck? WeWork. I know. Let's take a boring industry that trades at five to seven times EBITDA,

and if we mention the word tech 123 times in the prospectus, we're a tech company. Wait, SAS trades at a multiple of revenues, so let's call ourselves space as a service. Wait, companies that have a Jesus Christ-like figure seem to trade at a higher multiple, so let's use the word Adam 153 times in our prospectus. Well, guess what?

I'm going to call you Gisele. I'm starting for the fucking Pats this Sunday. I think you're just jealous. You'll get there. That makes sense. I call her Gisele over and over on the Pats. Gisele. Bunchen.

Listen to me. Literally, that prospectus, literally, I mean, there's one thing to wallpaper over bullshit. This is the wood paneling of Mike Brady's den from the Brady Bunch. This shit, and when the paneling comes off, this company, and we see what's behind this bullshit, we're going to find literally a family of raccoons and a bunch of mummified drug mules. The halcyon of inflmified drug mules.

The halcyon of inflated stocks is cheap capital. This is a test for the markets. If WeWork gets public, granted Uber and Lyft got public, stupid companies. They're being taken to the woodshed. If this shit gets public, it could literally torch the markets. You're looking at a destruction of value if this thing gets out, the likes of which we probably haven't seen, maybe the exception of Cisco that got cut by $60 or $70 billion in 2000 to get another boring comment. But WeWork is literally the most amazing exercise in creative writing.

Read that prospectus. It is fascinating. All right. So this next one will be good. So that's a cell. Yes, that's a cell. Okay, got it. So this question is excellent.

Have you made many enemies on Pivot? Like, here's the thing. And here's the thing. And I have... I think you need a code. I think everyone else has a code. I make personal attacks. And I have a code around personal attacks. Only with people who are more powerful than you.

Otherwise, it's bullying. And also, if you have people who love you, and you're economically secure, and you get a great job where people give you license to say whatever you want, my heroes are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kurt Cobain, and Muhammad Ali. Do you think they were living their life in fucking fear? Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. I can do any job a man can do,

and it smells like teen spirit, bitches. Personally, I think you're jealous of Adam Neumann's hair, but that's another thing. He's dreamy. Has anyone seen him? Oh, my God. I'm coming back. It's him in my next life.

My rap, his hair, junior senator from Pennsylvania. Hello. He looks, I thought he was an Argentinian. He's Israeli, but he has that Argentinian polo player dreaminess about him. Yeah. That's another two turns of Ibiza right there. Yeah. Seriously. Right there. That's another two turns of EBITDA right there. Yeah. Seriously, right there.

Do you know, that guy's dreamy. And by the way, I love his wife going on CNBC saying that a woman's role is to help manifest their husband's dreams like, like, like Adam. Hey, whatever works for you, whatever works for you guys, fine. But by the way, Adam should be feel pretty manifested with $700 million in secondary stock sales before the company goes public. But by the way, you should buy shares. You should buy shares. Well, he said it shows that he's optimistic. But anyway. Well, according to sources close to the company in the Wall Street Journal. That would be

Adam, by the way. Give you a little lesson in reporting. When it says sources close to the company, it's usually a top executive. Sources close to the situation is actually's usually a top executive. It sources close to the situation, it's actually the person. Just something like that. Right? You know that?

I didn't know that. Did you know that? Welcome to journalism. It's like a baseball. Welcome to journalism for you. All right. What's the best bit of unconventional career advice you've gotten, both of us? Walt Mossberg, when I got the job at the Wall Street Journal, said to me, go in, parachute into the internet, the tech space with cleats and

smash everybody's faces. I think that worked out well for me. That was a good piece of advice. Best piece of advice I've ever received. Hamid Moghadam, the chairman now of Prologis, this read, said to me after the dot-com bubble burst, and I mean, I just got run over by that. And I was feeling very sorry for myself. He said, nothing's ever as good or as bad as it seems.

And I have found that has really helped me because when I think I'm killing it, it's easy to blame the markets for your failures and credit your character and your grit for your own success. When things are going really well, it's important to realize it's not entirely your fault. And in the same time, when things get really bad, it's also important, and it's helped me realize it's not entirely your fault, and this too shall pass. Nothing's ever as good or as bad

as it seems. Is that the algebra of happiness? Go on. Go on. That is Scott's book, which I've still... Number 13 on Apple Books by Angry Depressed Professors of the Rectile Dysfunction. I was planning to read it on vacation. Yeah, thanks for saying that. You need to start investing in this relationship. No, I don't think so. I'm going to read it at some point in my life. All right.

Kara, you were spot on with your prediction that no one would have a landline, and I agree that personal cars are on the way out. What is the next thing to go? I'm going to write a follow on that story. I said that owning a car is going to be like owning a horse someday, like a hobby kind of thing. I have sold my car. I am working without

personal car ownership, and so I'll be writing an update of it, which is really interesting. I've been walking a lot. Don't shake your head at me. You don't have a pickup. It's fine if you want a pickup in the Midwest. The big dog loves his car. You do. How many cars do you have? it's a big throaty V8 like 3 miles to the gallon

literally I roll up and it's like bit to baby hello German ambassador throaty feel of an internal combustion engine by the way Tesla we love stories the fastest way to address climate change right now there's 3 trillion trees in the world you want carbon recapture figure out a way

to plant another trillion trees. But there's no money in that and there's no one to idolize in that. There's no IPO in that. You build a Tesla, it's bad for the environment. The energy it takes to manufacture a car and bend steel and then fire up that coal plant to give you electricity, what bullshit. But there's no money in planting trees, right?

Sorry, go ahead. I don't need a car to make me feel more like a man. Anyway. Uh. Uh. Uh. Oh. Scott and or Kara, what are you optimistic about? Sharks.

Sharks and Nantucket next week. You go first. What am I optimistic about? Nothing. What are you optimistic about? Nothing. I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think people are either optimistic optimists and they're idiots. Pessimistic optimists who are okay, whatever. They assume the best but things

turn badly. Pessimistic pessimists, which you're kind of that. And I'm an optimistic pessimist. I assume the worst and then things turn out and I'm like, oh, that's turned out well. You know, I hate my life less and less every day. So, yeah, I don't know. I see the world is half empty right now. Really? Kara. Yeah, you feel bad.

Yeah, time with my kids makes me feel optimistic. All right, me too. You're having a kid, that makes me feel optimistic. Yes, I am indeed. Yes, indeed. You have to believe in the future if you're having children. Okay, then. All right, then.

All right, in Mark Zuckerberg's old age. Okay, he's dying. Okay. Will he be more Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch? Bill Gates. That's his mentor. People don't realize it. If Mark, I asked him, I interviewed him, I was expecting a different mentor, but Bill

Gates has indeed been his biggest mentor, and they spent a lot of time talking. Will he be more Bill Gates or who? Rupert Murdoch. Oh, he'll definitely be more Mussolini. Okay. Here's the thing, all right? Most dangerous man on the planet, Mark Zuckerberg. And by the way, all right, Trump, you may be scared of Trump.

Trump's either out in whatever, 17 months or 65 months. Biology will take care of Putin in six to nine years. This is an individual who oversees the algorithms, nudging people one way or another of a population the size of the southern hemisphere plus India, and he's going to be around for another seven years and can't be removed or elected out of office. By the way, all the greatest tyrants in history didn't wake up and say, oh, I'm going to be a bad person today. They all thought they were being good people, or at least most of them, but we didn't have checks and balances and power corrupts

And so he may be the most wonderful person in the world But the fact that we figured out a way to give someone a platform That no just one people one way or the other in the pursuit of shareholder value of the third of the planet What could go wrong? Yeah, I agree with you on that one. I do I do but he's a nice guy Anyway, Amazon acquires this is from Terry Kawaja. Hi Terry I agree with you on that one. I do. I do. But he's a nice guy. Anyway, Amazon acquires... This is from Terry Kawaja. Hi, Terry. I see you right there. TK, where's another Canadian?

Amazon acquires ViacomCBS for TV content. Also, Union Square Ventures will not lead Section 4's Series A round. That's you were attacking. That's insider baseball. You're baiting me to say something that's going to get me in trouble. So what was the question about Viacom?

Yeah. So look, I don't, this is how I think, and I'm guilty of this. This is how I think we lose the election. I've been thinking about, we're accused a lot in New York and on the left of being elite. Elites. And what does that mean? It means constant virtue signaling wrapped in hypocrisy. It means complaining about Trump when you finance the platform that's given him access to 65 million people and haven't kicked him off the platform despite the fact he in fact violates terms of service every day. It means financing a company and talking about its creativity when, in my view, it was primarily a porn site, which I think is fine, but has anybody other than the firm that Terry was talking about made more money off of porn

than Union Square Ventures, who invested $400,000 and got $250 million back? More power to them. But my sense is elites are primarily what we have to be careful of is spending our evenings barking at the moon about inequality and Trump and then spending the day pissing in the well. Let's kill all the lawyers.

All right, all right. Which Fortune 500 company would you love to run? What would you do with it? You go first. What would you like to run? Disney and i'd close all the parks down yeah i hate those parks bob eiger always makes me go to a disney park where i do an interview with him like always and then one time he had a tv crew following me around just to document my horror. Because at one point when I was interviewing him, he was like, how do you like Disney parks? I said, oh, the unhappiest place on earth.

So I would do that. No, Disney, I think that would be a fun company to run right now. A hundred percent. A ton of fun. Kids, media, get to the Academy Awards. It would be a ton of fun. I think that would be great. Yeah.

I'm in. Co-CEO. Yep. I think Airbnb would be interesting, too. Great company. That'll be, it's easy to be negative. That's a great company. That'll be, I mean, we'll see on the valuation,

but that'll be the best performing, probably, unicorn. Great CEO. That's going to be incredible. Very thoughtful. Moats, real barriers of entry. If you think about Uber, there's local supply and local demand is all that's needed. So if Kara and I had 30 or 50 million bucks, we could start a ride-hailing company in New York

and create local supply, drivers, and local demand. But what Airbnb has that is so special is they have to have local supply, that is people willing to rent their homes, but they have to have global demand, meaning that the people coming into New York are from all over the world. So that's a huge moat. In order to replicate or create a competitor to Airbnb, I think you would literally need billions of dollars. So I think that's the most undervalued private company in the world right now, and I think WeWork is the most overvalued private company in the world right now. Yeah. And Brian Chesky, who runs it, is terrific.

He's terrific. He's flat-out terrific and learning on the job and has a great staff. It's interesting. And not everything's perfect. They have all these issues around them. But they've been sorting them out in a really interesting way. Not perfect, but certainly more interesting. All right, let's ask a few questions from the audience,

and then we'll finish up with one last question right here. Ivan Shaw from Condé Nast. Hi, Ivan. Hi. Thanks for your talk. It was terrific, as always. Do you miss Bob? I do, I do, but I think Roger's terrific, so I'm very excited.

That's an excellent corporate answer. So I still have my job job is what you're saying. You started the conversation about talking about fear. And I wonder if you could elaborate on that. There seems to be fear of the president, fear of disruption, fear of the Russians, fear of social media. Is it more than normal? Are we just more aware of it?

Or is there something really going on? I was having dinner with somebody the other night and they're saying it's just this sense of anguish and fear. It just seems like it's very prevalent. I'm just curious your thoughts. I'm not scared of it at all. So, you know, I think it's just typical. It's cyclical.

Like he said, I think people get, like, I'm older, and I remember during the Reagan administration, at the depth of the AIDS crisis, how depressed I was about what was happening. And, you know, and James Watt was saying trees cause pollution, if you remember him. He was the head of the Department of Interior. They had people who now seem fantastic, by the way. You're like, ah, Donald Rumsfeld, great guy. Not at all, right? Cheney used to be nice, right? If you're slightly liking Cheney, you want to, like, poke your eye out, essentially.

And so I think I remember feeling that way. And then things started to change. For me, it was through art, like Angels in America and Rent and some other things, where people said, enough, that's enough. And the same thing with Joe McCarthy. We've gone through these periods. And then at the hearings, it was

have you no shame. I think there are moments like that that end things. And for me, that happened during the Reagan administration when ACT UP started to do stuff. And it changed it. Suddenly you're like, we don't have to take this shit. And we can turn it around. And so I don't feel, I feel like this will pass like he says, that this will pass.

There will be huge damage, of course, as it was in other things. So i feel when people are scared that's sort of the time to double down on that's enough and no this no further kind of stuff i think people are starting to young people for sure are starting to feel that way which i i've just met a bunch of hopeful people that are working for like elizabeth warren's campaign and other campaigns. And I really enjoyed seeing them. I was pretty positive about that. That's nice. So FDR was right. Nothing to fear but fear itself.

The reason we are demonizing the people who are less fortunate than us all stems from fear. I remember I lived in San Francisco in the early 90s walking around the Castro, and there were these young men with their whole lives ahead of them, littered in stores who were like three months away from dying. And I don't want to say we solved it, but we got through it. My mother, in 1944, was a four-year-old Jew who got led by her father

to the bottom of a tube station to spend the night, and they used to pass out gas masks in the shape of Mickey figures in case a gas alarm went off. And we got through that. So if we can't get through any of the bullshit we're dealing with now, it's kind of an insult to everyone who's shown so much more metal than us up until now. There's nothing

wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America. You also see people like, I've done several podcasts with Stacey Abrams, who I'm so impressed with every time I talk to her. What a brilliant person. What an orthogonal thinker. She thinks in ways that she gives me answers, I'm like, oh, I hadn't

thought of that. So when you see certain politicians working, she could have anything she wants in the political thing. She's working on voter suppression, which is critically important. All she wants to be is governor of Georgia and wants to do a good job. So you see people like that, and I get a lot of inspiration from people like her. Her in particular, for some reason.

She really strikes me as a politician, the kind of politician we can have in this country, who works with everybody, is not angry, but doesn't put up with any shit. You know, that kind of person. So, another question? We lost men's vogue. That was a blow. Okay, right. This woman right here? We lost men's vogue. That that was a blow but i think we'll come back from that

kara i'm pretty sure i know how you feel on this or generally scott i'm now a little bit murky on you but she's murky on you that would mean someone who knows me what liz i'm murky on him too so don't worry murky so it seems like big tech has done more harm than good. Is there a way that these companies like Google, who offer so much, can rewind and do good for society that's actually good? Or is it too late? I will say yes. Because I was just, oddly enough, I took my son up to look at University of Washington on a college trip and I went to visit Microsoft I went to see Satya Nadella and Brad and so and the people and some of the stuff they're doing Microsoft used to be just flat-out evil like you remember

like damage damage damage all the place and I really was sort of heartened by like now they're like kind of good they're like you know they're kind smart. There's lots of ways that the leadership of Google and maybe not Facebook, unless they change leadership. If you realize Microsoft is today, you could see that changing. And then you look at, it doesn't last for, autocrats don't last that long. Autocrats are monopolies. I mean, every autocrat always ends up in a drainage ditch dead, as far as I can see in history, most of them. And so all these big monopolies always tend to cycle themselves out.

But certainly there's people in the employee base and stuff like that that certainly, I think so. What do you think? I haven't heard a word since you said the word murky because I'm such a narcissist. Murky is where the sharks are. That hurts my feelings. So let me be clear.

I think, if you'd like at all a big tech, I think we're net gainers from big tech. I think if we had door one or door two and we could have big tech or not have it, we would choose to have it. I also think we would choose to have pesticides. I think pesticides are a net good, but we have an FDA.

I think we would choose to have fossil fuels, but we have Emission standards what I don't understand is why we don't take this organization or this this sector and do the same thing We've done with every other sector and that is take something incredible, but also realize there are exogenous Negative attributes and unless we regulate them this could turn out really ugly so a net gainer They're the number one recruiter out of my class. I've made a lot of money. I like them. They used to pay me a lot of money to come advise them.

They're a net gainer. The problem is the word net. And that doesn't mean we let them off the hook for everything. That's right. Also, electricity is really working out well for all of us, I think. Okay, two more quick questions right here in the front. Okay, two more quick questions right here in the front. Okay, cool. Could you talk a bit about venture capital

and their role in having those big valuations in unicorns? And I'm always wondering, should they have like a moral obligation in not letting things go too far? And in investing in other companies and other products more than just another app or another ride hailing app yes they should no they won't so it's it's the most homogeneous group of people you are ever going to want to meet you know as a group of people

it's becoming slightly more diverse but slightly slightly and so it's a group of homogeneous people that live in a very small part of Northern California and not the best parts either the dullest parts of Northern California you know Palo Alto on a Saturday night that's a rockin' time so so

it just literally they don't have any and they're not like they're really particularly good capitalists either they're just sort of like it's such a masturbatory culture I don't even know I just it needs to change financing needs to change drastically in order to find oh come on that was good that was good that was a VC by the way so so I think I'd be surprised if it changes. I think financing has to change

because they're not reaching out to... I did a really good, of all things, at a Scaramucci conference that he had in Vegas. I was in Vegas with Scaramucci and Steve Case and Mark Cuban. I had interviewed them there and they were talking about this. Two white guys I'm interviewing,

but they were right. That was like world-class name-dropping even for you. Yes, I know. Sorry, I'm sorry. I just was there. That's why I was interviewing. I'm interviewing but they were right that was like world class name dropping yes I know sorry I'm sorry I just was there that's why I was interviewing I'm sorry you weren't invited in any case they were talking about talentism and talent being everywhere and Steve's wife Jean Case has written a book about

and her one quote from it that really struck for me is there's not a lack of talent there's a lack of opportunity. And so you have to find out where those people are, because there's talent everywhere across the world. Because if not, it means that only... If you went by Silicon Valley terms, only middle-aged white guys would be the only smart people on this planet.

And while a lot of them are, they don't have... So it has to change. I don't see it changing, but it has to change. Last week, I went to go to the Amazon bookstore and I bought the Everything Store. Right,

that's Brad Stone. Brad Stone. Yeah, great book. So, when Brad Stone's book came out, it was infamous

and Mackenzie Bezos released a review on it saying that the book was inaccurate. I went to look at the comments. Amazon buried

that review completely. Okay. Of hers? Of hers. It's not there anymore. It had a thousand recommendations and it completely buried it. And what does that mean that Amazon could just bury a review just because it didn't portray something favorably? Also, kind of like Bezos, like... Yeah, it's a little awkward with the two of them. Yeah, awkward with that. And they can do that, but they can't really clean out any of the Bezos. Yeah, it's a little awkward with the two of them. Yeah, awkward with that. They can do that, but they can't really clean out any of the bot reviews.

Well, it's interesting. It's an interesting question about Amazon. Do you have any thoughts on their reviews? So I'm going to go out on a limb here and argue that that is not the worst thing that big tech has done. No, he has a bigger point. It's the control that they have over these platforms. And they have enormous control.

And so that's why these questions around free speech and everything else is a big question. But let me be clear with you. When I argue with people about them, they are in charge of regulating this stuff. Until Congress steps in or does something, these are private companies who control enormous platforms and that you have to understand whenever people when i say you've got to get some of this dreck off of reddit or facebook or whatever um i get all the free speech dudes come up like free speech you know i have freedom of speech and i said did you read the Amendment? Because I'm pretty certain you didn't. And it's Congress shall make no law. It does not say Twitter shall make no law. It does not say Facebook. They're not public squares. And we pretend they are and expect things of them that we would expect from public squares. And they are not that. And

they're incapable of doing it. They're not inclined to do it. And so they will manipulate it in any way they feel like. And often it is random. In that case, I bet it's some random person did that. I don't think Jeff Bezos is up there pushing buttons like he's a Bonneville, although he certainly looks like one these days. I don't think that's the case. I think they're the... I use the quote from The Great Gatsby, which is, you know, Nick and Daisy, they were careless people. They broke things and people, and they moved on. And I think that's what they remind me of. And I think that if you think about that, you, you, they're not plot makers, they're more, they don't

care. I think that's the problem. And I think we have to make them care and as as consumers, and as politicians and everything else, and they'll do it just like everyone else has fallen in line. Anyway, Scott, any final thought? I'm grateful to be here. To think about where we are, distinct of all the noise and everything, I think our kids and our grandkids are going to look back on this age,

and if we're fortunate enough to live in the greatest city and the greatest country in the world in an economic boom time with so much promise, our grandkids are going to look back and think, wow, grandma, grandpa, you got to be in New York in 2019. So here's to us being in such a wonderful country, a wonderful city, and a wonderful time. It's great to be here. Thank you so much. Don't you worry here.

Look behind us. I was on such a roll there. I know. Sorry. I'm sorry. You just weren't going to get the thanks. But, you know, look what's behind us. Zuccotti Park. Remember what this was like

not too long ago. So I think you started to think about revival. What was not too long ago? 9-11. Oh, Jesus Christ. Talk about shaming. Did you see the look she just gave me? In any case, this week we're going to do another amazing podcast. You're going back up.

We're going to talk about a range of things. We're going to do more live stuff. We're going to do more live events. We really like them. We're going to take them across the country. We really appreciate your suggestions and questions, so please write us to Scott or I. We really do respond, and we respond ourselves

to the things we're getting from people. We do. We do. So thank you from people. We do. We do. So thank you so much. Keep listening. And again, thank you for being here to our live event. Thank you. That's a wrap, Kara.

Thanks to our audience for joining Pivot Live. Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis and Eric Johnson. Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Rebecca Castro, Drew Burrows, and Nishat Kerwa. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you like this week's episode, leave us a review. If you have any suggestions

for what you want to hear us talk about on a future show, send us an email, pivot at voxmedia.com. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. You cannot get enough of Scott and Kara. Isn't that right, Scott? Yes, that's right. We're like Reese's peanut butter cups.

Oh, my God. Anyway, come back. I don't know where I got that. I don't know where I got that. All right. In any case, we'll see you all later this week. 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.

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