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

Episode Date: March 15, 2019

Kara and Scott are live in Austin, Texas for SXSW. They talk antitrust, the breakdown of big tech and take audience questions and predictions.  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. Howdy, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Why did I say howdy, Scott Galloway?

Because we're here in the great state of Texas. Yep. And where are we at? We are at, we're in the deep end, the Vox deep end, talking to friends here in the South and hanging at South by Southwest. So this week we decided to do Pivot Live in front of the audience here at the Vox Media House at South by Southwest. We recorded in front of an audience and took some questions. Take a listen. Oh, man.

This is very exciting. This is our first live pivot, so are you drunk? Good. That's a key aspect. Scott, sit down. Okay. All right, Scott. So we're going to usually do our regular pivot.

We're usually far away from each other. You're looking very reflective right now. What's going on? I look reflective? Yeah, what's going on? I'm just depressed. Okay. All right. Why? Just I am who I am.

Okay. All right. Okay. We usually, it won't take long. We usually do this from far away. Usually somewhere. I think this is the third or fourth time we've been together. To live, exactly. And we have a lot to talk about. We have a lot of things to talk about. And we're going to do a regular show. We've already taped the beginnings and endings of thanking everybody and the hi, I'm Kara Swisher kind of stuff. And he's Scott Galloway. And so we're going to talk about a range of things that are happening here at South by Southwest. And then we're going to take questions from the audience, which we're also going to include in the podcast. So please think of good questions for us, whatever you want to ask us about whatever topic in tech and media.

good questions for us, whatever you want to ask us about whatever topic in tech and media. I think we really do have to start with Elizabeth Warren's proposal to kill all of tech. So I think what you're trying to say is you're just very excited to see me. Yes, I am. No. Okay. So Senator Warren, I think most of you have seen, she's come out with, she's the first candidate to sort of articulate what she means by breaking up big tech. And it was really a gangster move because it was, or a ninja move, whatever you want to call it, because immediately she's got a ton of traction because she's the first candidate that's gone beyond saying tech has too much influence and we need to look into that.

She's actually articulated, she's adopting sort of the Indian model, the Indian government has decided that if you own the rails you can't compete with the company, if you're platform you can't be in the business, which makes a lot of sense and she said that Facebook should spin WhatsApp and Instagram and that Google should spin double-, which would be an enormously damaging move for Google. But she also didn't stop with them. She said Apple should spin off the App Store also. Is that right? I didn't see that. Yeah, she did also add that. A lot of these groupings together, she wants to break up completely. So in addition, it has the luxury of being the right thing. But in addition to that, in terms of her ability, I think it cements her as the intellectual leader of the Democratic Party.

I also believe as somebody who probably joins the majority of people in this audience that would like to see a change in the White House, it is really where the Democrats should focus. Because if their key issue is breaking up big tech in order to oxygenate the market, in order to double down on capitalism, in order to double down on capitalism, in order to reinvest in America, in order to say, we are about competition, we are about oxygenating the middle class, as opposed to having our lead, if you will,

in this story around why Democrats should take back the White House, being the new Green Deal, regardless of what you think of it, distinct of what you think is the right thing to do, the way we get elected or the way we retake the White House being the new Green Deal, regardless of what you think of it, distinct of what you think is the right thing to do. The way we get elected or the way we retake the White House in a gangster move from an actual gangster is to focus on capitalism. And that is capitalism works. We just need to double down on it. And the key to capitalism is the rule of fair play. All right. Let me... Was I going on way too long there? You were. That's all right, that's all right.

I'm used to it. So I agree with you on some of the things she was saying, that this is the most... Did Klobuchar bring this up? She did, in a much more I-need-to-look-into-it way. She had more of I-need-to-study-it. I said, do you think these should be broken up? She did say, when I asked directly, I just interviewed Amy Klobuchar,

a senator from Minnesota who's also running for president. She was a prosecutor. She's obviously going to be less... She's just, I'm going to study it, I'm going to investigate it, and then we'll decide what to do. That's basically what they've all said. But when I said, do you trust big tech, she said no. She didn't say well on one hand. On the other hand, what I think is interesting, two things about Elizabeth Warren. I agree, she's come out with the most, the starkest proposal so far. She also previously had done the billionaire taxing thing, which I think is a book.

There are two bookends to this. We're going to tax them and also big tech. And a lot of the billionaires happen to be big tech people. And so she's not obviously the favorite candidate of Silicon Valley right now. And what I said to, when I think they saw the Warren proposal, I was saying they vomited in their Allbirds. And then someone, some tech

person is like, we don't all wear Allbirds. And I was like, fuck you. Whatever. You know what I'm saying. You're all awful people. And the way you dress is abhorrent. So what was interesting about it, two things. I had her at Code a couple of years ago. And we do feedback stuff from the audience.

And it literally was the worst feedback I've ever gotten. Largely on her tone, the way she talked to them. I've never gotten so much feedback from someone that was so like, I hate her. She's the worst. I don't want to hear from her. And she was articulating a lot of these ideas. The jigs up boys, essentially. We're going to start taxing you.

We're going to start this. And they, of course, the argument was, you're going to kill innovation. You're going to kill everything that's good and all the goodness we have done. So how do you, when they come back with that idea, China's going to take over. you're trying to ruin us, China's just going to ascend it,

and they have terrible values compared to us, how is she going to answer that? Well, so first off, I think where we lose the script or lose the argument is when you start using words like, or terms like 70%. If I were the Republican Party, I would just run ads saying, 70%, is this what you want with the Democrats?

Because that's what AOC and some other people have proposed in terms of a super tax. And I think the byline needs to be, we don't want to raise taxes. We want to enforce some sort of equity around taxes. Amazon, Walmart's paid $68 billion in taxes since 2008. Walmart's paid $1.4 billion. In Europe, Google has paid more in fines than they have paid in taxes. So capital gains tax, the two largest tax deductions in America are capital gains taxes when you sell assets and then mortgage tax deduction. Let's talk about each of those. Who owns assets

and stocks? The top 1% own 80% of the stocks. Young people get all their income from current income. And for some reason we've decided in America that the money that sweat makes is less honorable than the money that money makes. So our current tax structure is nothing but a transfer of wealth from the young and middle class to old rich people who own homes and own stocks. So we don't need to raise tax rates, we need to go back to Reagan and that is any money you make, whether it's from capital gains, and let me be clear. Do as I say, not as I do. I'm an entrepreneur. I sold my business two years ago. Do you realize the first $10 million in a capital gain when an entrepreneur sells his or her business is tax-free? That's ridiculous. Why? That is ridiculous.

That is ridiculous. Do you realize last year Amazon, again, paid no taxes? So we have this tax system where we've institutionalized a regressive corporate tax, meaning that if the world's most successful companies don't pay any taxes, the less successful companies have to pay taxes. And we have this weird system, tax system, where it goes like this, it's progressive until you hit the 99th percent and then your taxes plummet. So the people who actually get screwed, people simplified, it's a nuanced argument, are probably the people in this room. And that is if you make say between 80 grand and 500 grand a year, you're what I call a workhorse and the majority of your income comes from a current income. You pay between 30% in Texas or Florida and about 50% in New Jersey, Connecticut, or New York.

You're paying a much higher tax rate. It's not so you make the jump to light speed and become a multimillionaire that your taxes go down. I'm sorry, I'm drowning out. That's okay. All right. So you didn't get taxed very much. That's the message there. I paid...

Pretty much. All right. Pretty much. And by the way, let's be honest, I'm not going to dis All right. Pretty much. And by the way, let's be honest, I'm not going to disarm unilaterally. Right. And so are not... And most wealthy people are not.

So you've bought yourself a congressman. What's that? You've bought yourself a congressman or something. And a lot more. Yeah, okay. All right, so regardless of this happening, these are the messages that are coming from the key candidates. And of course, I think Warren is the candidate

with the most boldest ideas. And she's setting the tone. We were just talking about this. So setting the tone with idea after idea after idea, which is like her, very much like her. How much success is this going to have? Because one thing Klobuchar did talk about is antitrust. And I think that's her area of expertise. She happens to be on that committee in the Senate. And obviously we talked last week about Alina Khan joining the subcommittee. How likely is going...

Three days ago, actually, Klobuchar proposed that the FTC re-look at the Google investigation, which I think most people agree they got off scot-free in this country. Meanwhile, Margaret Vestager, who I'm going to interview tomorrow, slammed them. The U.S. government decided it wasn't anager, who I'm going to interview tomorrow, slammed them. You know, the U.S. government decided it wasn't an issue, even though Yelp and others had

testified. Klobuchar wanted to reopen that investigation, which didn't get a lot of attention. How successful are any of these efforts going to be? So I think it's where, you know, winter is coming. I think we're setting up for the mother of all battles, because the big tech has learned from the sins of the father. Ballmer and Gates decided we're above all that and they didn't invest in Washington and the DOJ knocked on their door fairly early. So Google, the fastest growing expense line

at all of these firms, it's not human capital, it's not artificial intelligence, it's lobbying. They're smart. They figured out that capital. It's not artificial intelligence. It's lobbying. They're smart. They figured out that Washington is pretty much pay for play. It's in Citizens United. You can pretty much buy your way out of stuff in Washington,

and they figured that out. So when there's 97 to 1 in the Senate, an anti-sex trafficking act passes. We haven't had any sort of bipartisan legislation like that in the last 10 years. So you trafficking act passes. We haven't had any sort of bipartisan legislation like that in the last ten years. You think, okay, that makes sense. And then Backpage, remember them? They got closed down. There is now an entity fighting that ruling and taking it to the Supreme Court, a lot of money, a lot of experts, and that entity

is a front for Google, who has decided... This is around the Communications Decency Act, Section 230. Who's decided that any threat that inhibits any platform might be a threat to Google. So Amazon has 88 full-time lobbyists in D.C. 88 full-time, very well-paid, very smart people showing up in every congressman and senator's office and saying, you're either with us or you're against us. And if you're with us, I can get you reelected.

Because let's be honest, this is all about the Benjamins and you need money to get reelected. So we're waging, we are gearing up for the mother of all battles. But let's be clear, you know, in all of us, I generally believe this, we can't resign ourselves to say, you know, it's too much.

They're going to do what they're going to do. The world isn't the world we live in. The world is the world we make of it. We can absolutely break these guys up. Do you think that is going to happen? Realistically. Realistically? Realistically.

There will be legislation. There may be some antitrust legislation. And maybe they can't buy stuff anymore. Do you imagine them? I mean, the reason I think Mark Zuckerberg, I wrote a story that's in the Times today, the print edition of the Times published the other day, which was... He did it for a lot of reasons.

Data that he wants to just fully steal Snapchat's ideas completely after just shoplifting most of the good ideas over there. But what I think the reason he put it together, and Klobuchar did reference this, is so you can't pull them apart so easily. He's putting together WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, and the properties, and the 17 people who use Oculus.

He's doing it to keep them together so that they're hard to pull apart. Their stake was they should have gone with porn. Anyways, look, just to circle back on antitrust, the gangster antitrust guy was Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, who basically turned on the people elected in the railroads and said, I love you, but I've got to break you up. When AT&T, when they proposed breaking up AT&T,

they said, well, you need one big capital player to make the requisite investments. If you break us up, NTT from Japan is coming with us because everyone was worried about the Japan taking over and doing to us economically what they couldn't do to us militarily. And now you hear the same thing. This is the narrative you're going to hear from big tech. The Chinese and their AI warriors are coming for us. You need big people. Every time we've broken companies up, shareholders, employees, middle class, innovation. When we broke up AT&T, we literally unlocked 30 years of stakeholder value. Mobile, analytics, optics, fiber.

It was all sitting dormant. Antitrust is one of the few government actions that kind of always works. It's hard to go back and say, when did it not work? What was the second part? Microsoft, it was another breakup. I mean, the monopoly thing. It brought in, ushered in Google. A hundred percent.

If the DOJ hadn't shown up and said, stop killing companies in the crib like you did with Netscape, we'd all be saying, hey, everybody, I don't know, bing it. Do you think Google, do you think Microsoft wouldn't have used its economic and bundling power to kill Google in the crib?

But they didn't. And so now 75,000 high-paying jobs, $750 billion, the object of all of our affection because of government interaction. Antitrust isn't socialist. It's fucking gangster. It's capitalist.

That's who we are. Double down on capitalism. This shit works. You know, oddly enough, and thank you for that amazing rant, I was on stage with Bomber and he introduced Bing at one of our conferences and he actually said, Bing it, like that. It was an awkward silence. Thud.

Yeah. It was bad. It was... Thud. Especially from him because he was like, you know, he stood up and yelled and screamed. It didn't work.

Developers. It was like developers. But that was so good. That was so good. So again, antitrust is probably the way this is going to go down. But who's going first?

Who's going to get... Is it Amazon? Is it Google? Is it... I'm going to go with Google. Why do you think it's Google? And what do they spend? What gets broken up? I think they pull apart the advertising from the search, maybe. Something like that. Because I think they have the most history of being investigated. I think they've got, they've got, it's hard to, and with Facebook, you know, I suppose Snapchat will have to turn on them in some way and prove.

You'd have to use Snapchat as the Netscape of that. Because in this latest round with Mark, we even talked about it with Mark proposed, it's literally Snapchat. He's like, private messaging is really important and public posting is not as good. And I'm like, what? It's called Snapchat, right? I'm pretty sure that's called. So he's going right for their heart. Yeah, if you were more honest,

you would call the next version of Instagram Snap. Right, right, exactly. Well, I always said that Evan Spiegel is Facebook's chief product officer. But speaking of antitrust and Facebook and Snap, so I don't know if you saw, but T-Mobile and Sprint are threatening, I've said we want to

merge to create a third competitor. And the DOJ and attorneys general in Florida, Tennessee, and New York have said, oh, we got to look into this. This is a threat. The total user base of a combined Sprint and T-Mobile is 130 million people. Integrating across one communications platform, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger is 2.7 billion people. So one of two things is happening. Either the call to restrain the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint is insane, or we should have been looking at this crazy notion that one man who's a college dropout, who started his career with a website evaluating women on their physical appearance, who is, with a website evaluating women on their physical appearance,

who is, in my view, a broken sociopath. We are going to give him, and cannot be removed from his job, by the way, cannot be fired, cannot be booted out of office, cannot be diselected, and billionaires never go to jail, so he will be around. We are going to put him in charge of the communications backbone of a population greater than the southern hemisphere.

But oh no, don't let T-Mobile and Sprint merge. Yeah. Broken sociopath? I think that's kind, right? I mean, seriously. I wrote about this in my blog today. Broken sociopath? I wrote about this in my blog today. I had an individual at work last week go out with me and got so upset with me, this person started crying because she felt I had really let her down.

And I'm getting emotional. It totally fucked with me. I couldn't sleep. The next day I felt, you know, when you feel a little depressed, like your feet are hollow and you just feel a little light and insecure and like you're going to faint at the, like the wind could blow you over. And I'm like, here are these people. You don't know that? Okay. I know that. Hold me. Hold me. Anyways. And here are people who are like, oh, the Mianna Marie's military is using our platform to incent genocide. Oh, a guy, an innocent guy was pulled out of a car in India and hanged because of a rumor that spread on WhatsApp.

And we could have limited the number of spreading. I mean, how the fuck do these people get up in the morning? I think it is a, I truly admire this about them. I would be a walking set of insecure, jambled nerves. Have any two individuals done more damage while making more money than Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg in the history of mankind? You know I asked him about this. And he wouldn't answer. You know I had the blog with him. and I asked him six times about this. I said, how do you feel about it?

And he said, I feel fine, right? No, he did not say, I feel fine. He wouldn't answer it. So I said, how do you feel about what happened in Myanmar and India? And he goes, you know what I like, Kara? Fixing things that are broken. And I was like, okay, but you broke them. So how did that happen?

How did you break it? He goes, I like to look at the future. I like to lean into the future and figure out solutions. I'm a solutions-based guy. And I was like, yeah, I got that part, but you broke it, so I'd like to know how you broke it, and then we can figure out how to fix it. And he goes, together we should all try to fix it.

I said, yeah, but I didn't break it. You broke it. Like, you killed it. Your fault. I know, and it went on like that. It was kind of, it's like talking to one of my teens. Like, you made the mess of the room, or you broke it. Like you killed it. You're fault. I know. And it went on like that. It was kind of, it's like talking to one of my teens. Like you made the mess of the room or you were smoking pot or whatever the hell the

topic is of the week at my house. And so he literally wouldn't do it. And six times, he finally did get frustrated. He goes, well, what do you want me to say? And I said, you might start with I feel terrible. And then we can go from there. Like that's... But Kara, we need to do

better but we're proud of the progress we've made and Kara what kind of internet do we want what the fuck I'll tell you oh my god how about an internet that doesn't depress our teens how about an internet that doesn't catalyze genocide how about an internet that doesn't hollow out the middle class let's start with those zeros and ones. I'm down with that internet. Okay, all right. Thank you. Are you running from president? Because everyone else who is here.

Way too many skeletons. I know, that's true. That's a fair take. I just literally had that conversation of what you just said at the beginning of that. I literally just had that conversation with someone rather prominent on that. We're working as hard as we can,

and we know that we've made mistakes. We're doing as much as we can. All right, time to take a quick break. We'll be right back from our live show in Austin, Texas. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over 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.

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their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Welcome back to Pivot Listeners. Now back to our live show at South by Southwest from Austin, Texas. All right, we're going to move on to one thing because we're going to have a question from the audience. Wins and fails this week.

What are your wins and fails? I'm going to do one. I just interviewed Kathy Griffin. I recommend that you watch that. It was an astonishing interview about what happened to her after she put up the photo of Donald Trump where she was holding his head. Which was, some people,

the worst you can say, it's a tasteless joke. She was investigated. It was a mistake. She's a comic. They do them all the time, right? She's on the no-fly list. She was investigated by the Justice Department. And hasn't been able It was a mistake. But she's a comic. They do them all the time, right? She's on the no-fly list. She was investigated by the Justice Department. And hasn't been able to make a living. And hasn't been able to make a living. She was utterly canceled by the Internet.

She's been stalked by Nazis. She's been stalked by... It was an incredibly fascinating conversation. And it shifted her viewpoint on what kind of comic she is. She's like, I used to be able to talk about Desperate Housewives and make fun of them. And now she's talking about politics and things like that. Incredibly funny. I think this is... She's trying to... No one will run this amazing documentary that she's made, which I love. It's a great documentary. And

none of the people in Hollywood will touch it right now. But I was super surprised because most people think of her in a certain way. She really is talking about these issues of canceling people because of something and how the Trump right-wing thing went into full gear and sort of just ruined her. I think it's our fault, though. I think that we have become, we

created this environment where we have this gotcha culture where you get virtue points for being offended and it's very easy to be offended. And the moment you're offended, you're right. And so there's a certain status in being upset or indignant around what people say. I think especially with comedians, I think comedians should be a protected class. I think they should allow to be vulgar, say inappropriate things,

and realize when Lenny Bruce said really inappropriate things and was arrested, these people ended up being cultural, you know. Yeah, well, he was arrested by police departments, not targeted by the Trump family. But we on the left are the first to get very indignant or angry at anything. So when someone says something about the right, they hold us accountable and say, you know what, Kathy Griffin shouldn't be doing that. So my sense is we have to, you know, your beliefs are Alex Trebek who's dying.

I don't know why, I'm just like a huge fan of Alex Trebek. And I started reading about him. And he's had this great quote, he said, "'Don't tell me what you believe. "'I'm gonna observe your behavior "'and I'll make a decision around what you believe.'" And we spend so much time getting angry at other people and being indignant.

Just like you just did. Like you just did, but go ahead. Yeah, I'm just waiting. At some point, I'm going to say something stupid and fuck up on this show, and my career is going to be over. I literally think there's like a 10% chance anytime I'm on stage, I'm about to end it all. And the reality is if we don't be a little bit more generous with people

and say, yeah, it was a stupid thing to say, call them out, and then move on, not was a stupid thing to say, call them out, and then move on, not call for them to be fired, not have petitions that they shouldn't be able to perform, then the right is going to hold us to the same standards. So we all need to, I think we need to move out of this. Well, in her case, though, she got death threats, and they were astonishing death threats.

Yeah, that's out of control. And stuff like that. She got, like, mailbags full of death threats. And what was fascinating, because now she's best friends with the FBI because they bring her all the threats and stuff like that. She got like mailbags full of death threats and what was fascinating because now she's best friends with the FBI because they bring her all the threats and stuff like that and she loves the FBI but she's like Samantha this is this this Kathy Griffin but Samantha Bee also had a had a had a some we were walking in New York and there was someone following us they said who is that and she's like that's my security because of one errant

feckless we know what the wordrant feckless, we know what the word was, feckless cunt. So she called him Uncle Trump. So you can say that. And if we were in Britain, we could all say it. But you're a straight white guy, never, ever, ever say that. Ever. In any case, I don't think you have to say it any time recently. That's okay. Besides the point, the point I was making is she's, what was fascinating, she got a lot of, she decided Trump people like stamps, and so they sent her a lot of letters. Yeah. And a lot of them put their return address with these death threats. The return address?

The return address. So these are dumb psychos. Yes, exactly. So she would give it to the FBI, and they're like, oh, we'll look into this. She goes, well, the return address is right there. And they're like, oh, OK, this will take three minutes. OK, it was kind of an odd thing. Your win or fail? I think Senator Warren. I don't I personally, unfortunately, don't think that a progressive from a blue state can take the election. I think we're going to need someone from Colorado.

I think we're going to need someone from Colorado. I think it's going to be difficult for someone who's seen as very liberal to win Pennsylvania and Colorado and Florida and the states we need. But I think Senator Warren's actually putting some meat on the bones beyond a platitude. I think that's the win. And I think she's identified herself as the intellectual leader of the Democratic Party. But I want to go back to just the media tax because you and I haven't talked about this, but do you realize the right, specifically News Corp,

there's a very dangerous thing going on right now. And I think it happened to Samantha Bee. I think it happened to Kathy Griffin. And I think it's happened to you a little bit. And that is emerging progressive, powerful female voices come under a coordinated attack from media on the right. There was a, I don't even want to dignify the story, but there was a story about a media executive, progressive emerging female voice, and there was a coordinated attack against her from the Wall Street Journal to New York Post and and Fox it's no accident it was all three of

them so there is what I would call and I and I was trying to think does the left do that do progressive do they all coordinate and go after emerging Republican not quite as organized it's really it's interesting with me it's only Tucker fucking Carlson I mean really, really. Such a douche. I've been on Tucker Carlson. I know. You love him. I don't love him. I think he's very good looking. Okay. I think he's the guy

that everyone... I just think he's kind of a bow tie. I think he's kind of dreamy. I would make out with Tucker. Really? Do you know what I always said about him? What's that? He's the guy I dated before I became a lesbian. Anyway. You sort of moved me. Oh, yeah.

Okay. For sure. Did that push you over the edge? Right over the edge. I mean, like, ten miles into the border. You know, I was thinking about it, but now I'm sure. Okay. Now I'm sure.

I've also found that I think it's fun to objectify people and I find as long as I objectify men, I'm fine. Okay. All right. But I do agree with you. I had some wrangling with News Corp and their tactics just with Walt and I. I haven't gone into them in detail, but it was... Someone warned me, a very high ranking News Corp executive when we were leaving, I said, they're going to come and get you. And I was like, how ridiculous, we're so small. And they did so many dirty, sneaky tactics. It was really, it was riveting. But did we start? I think there should, I don't call them protected classes, but I think it's important comedians are given the cloud cover to say inappropriate things. Okay. I think it's

important journalists have a certain code that we're out there. We're trying to protect. Journalists' job is to protect the governed, not to protect the governors. And in order to do that, you have to give them a little bit of license and credibility. And there was a whole industry set up to make a lot of people on the right just look stupid every day. And so now they've adopted that industry and they go after and coordinated tax people on the left. And I feel like the media has been the most effective FBI not to carry guns and badges in the history of mankind. And when too much of their energy is spent going after each other, I just think it's,

I think we need more reverence for what I'll call legitimate media in the journalists. And I sort of loosely include you in that, Kara. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. But anyways, I don't know where we were going with that. All right. So predictions.

Very quickly, and then we have questions from the audience. We just have another 15 minutes left. Prediction. So this is the year that Tesla absolutely implodes. And I've just been reading about all the people in accounting and finance.

I've run companies, not big companies, but I've run small and medium-sized companies. And it's really true. This isn't a platitude. The team of the best players wins. And if you look at how many people

are leaving that company, I mean, at some point, there's no one even to, like, drive the damn cars off the assembly line. So I think this is the... In addition, the key to a successful... The key to Google and Facebook was, A, their genius and their technology talent, but it was also the fact that the media industry

had been raising prices faster than inflation while viewership went down. So Academy Awards commercial, 30-second spot, 30 years ago to reach 55 million people was a quarter of a million dollars. Now to reach 25 million people, it's three million. So they set themselves up for disruption, and in came these fists of stone called Facebook and Google. The auto industry is not ripe for disruption. Cars are amazing. They're better and they're less expensive than they were. So a combination of a robust industry, an individual who the key to a manager, really the key at some point is you're just all about retention. It's all about figuring out how you keep people in your company. And he is failing. Okay. Would you say though he's moved

forward the idea of this self-driving car idea and stuff like he has been the so is the question is tesla gonna fail or will tesla change the world for the better the answer is yes okay for both of them all right i'm okay all right i'm gonna predict i i last week last week at uh i uh i had the i was at lesbians who tech which oh so was that oh no you weren't yeah you're not Lesbians Who Tech. Oh, so was I. Oh, an emissary. No, you weren't. Lesbians Who Tech, LWT. Is that a hot ticket? It is a hot ticket. It is a hot.

It's a great. Where does that happen? In the Castro Theater. It's a thousand screaming geek lesbians. It's fantastic. It's wonderful. It's great. Anyway, I've interviewed Mark Benioff there.

I've interviewed Sheryl Sandberg. They all like the audience and stuff like that. And this year I did Susan Wojcicki. I interviewed her. And also Lorraine Powell. And I'm going to predict this because she said it out loud, that she will be buying some more big media properties. She said that. She's open.

What's left, though? What's left? I don't know. I don't know. But I think she's looking for some even bigger investments than she's made in the Atlantic and other things. I mean, Marc Benioff bought Time. That's the weakest flex in the world, isn't it? I mean, do what any good midlife crisis guy does and buy the Mavericks.

Okay. Right? I mean, but Benioff, I mean, buying time, is that going to get you into the Met Ball or get you a date with Karlie Kloss? I don't think so. If you're going to have a midlife crisis, do it right. All right. What do you think she should buy?

I don't know what's left. What are some great media properties that are left other than TV? I don't know. You know, the Times won't be sold. Washington Post has been purchased. I was sincere in my question. I don't know what's left. Maybe she can make a big investment in something.

I've been trying to get her to give a billion dollars to New York Times. New York Media. I think New York Magazine does a fantastic job. Condé Nast will begin selling itself at parks. There were rumors of New York Magazine getting invested in by Williams. She could do that. That's right. There's some great Condé Nast properties.

At some point, the new houses will get sick of the shit show that's been Condé Nast for the last 20 years, 10 years. All right. And start selling iconic properties there. It'd be fun to own Vanity Fair, right? Right. Yes. I don't know.

All right. But she's invested in The Atlantic, right? The Atlantic, Pop-Up Magazine, and several others, smaller ones. She's been doing a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So questions from the audience? We would like some great ones. Let's start here and then go here and then in the back. This is a question for Scott. Can you stand up and identify yourself? My name is Mark Hugh. I work for Amazon. This is a question for Scott. Oh, dear. So by the way, I just want to be clear, love Prime. Amazon is... I'm serious, though. Amazon is the biggest recruiter out of my class. I'll do 190 kids.

17 will go to Amazon this year. I was run over by the recession economically in 2008. I took what little money I had left, and I divided it between Apple and Amazon, restored economic security to my household. I love Amazon. I just think you're bad for the planet and bad for society. All right, then.

Have you spoken with Jeff? Have I spoken with Jeff? If you could. If I could. What would you tell him, and what should he do if he was to be broken up? What would I tell him? First off, never put your finger on a picture button on your phone.

Oh, give me a fucking break. But let me get this. Supposedly, literally, literally, the brightest mind in technology is sending out pictures of his junk. I mean, I've done some really stupid fucking things. Never have I thought, oh, I'm going to say I'm going to pick a big head in the twins. It's literally, it's literally never crossed my mind. And there's the moment. Literally never crossed my mind.

And I think we just had that moment, but go ahead. So beyond that, okay, my advice to him, my advice to him would be on a business level, I don't know the man, would be to spin AWS. I think AWS on the spin, it would prophylactically protect from antitrust, and on the spin, it would be one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world. I don't have any advice for him as a person. I don't know him, so I don't, but spin AWS.

I agree. I did interview Andy Jassy, and he was sort of pushing down that idea to me, pretty clearly, saying no. Everyone I talk to says absolutely no way. No way. That's what Andy said on stage. Andy Jassy, who's been there since he was, I think, 18 years old. I can't see your reaction, so I don't know if you like this or don't like this.

I just see your silhouette. I think one of the things, let's get to the next question. I think one of the things about Jeff, who I did used to talk to a lot, is he's much more stubborn and, you know, he seems like a laughing, friendly guy. He's a tough customer. And I think he doesn't listen to very many people. By the way, talk about a win of the year. The best handled PR crisis probably since Johnson & Johnson.

He did a great job on that. Was him turning around and showing courage around that. And he really, I mean, this is the mother of all turning chicken shit into chicken salad. Yeah. And a lot of it because there was this reservoir of goodwill from every journalist because he's largely seen as someone who turned around and saved this national treasure, the Washington Post. Yeah, that's not why. I think he just did a good job.

I think that was very much like him. That was a lot like what he would do. Like, fuck you. Even if he wasn't the world's richest man, that's kind of his attitude. What would you tell him to do? What's your advice? You know him.

I don't know him. He should spin off AWS. Spin AWS? Yeah, and go on. Talk to every journalist like myself. Go ahead. My name is XR. I live in San Marcos, South Africa.

XR? XR. By the way, XR, you've literally been talking about three seconds, and my next life I'm coming back as you. Look at this guy. All right, quick question.

Look at this guy. We've got six minutes. Hush. Stop man-loving. Oh, come on. Look at this guy. The name XR and that hair. Dude, I have your looks, my rap.

We're the junior fucking senator from Pennsylvania, dawg. Boom! Boom! All right, okay. All right. I'm a... Bet O'Rourke, blah, blah, blah. Okay.

XR! XR! I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm a reporter for a small paper in Hays County, which is south of Austin. I'm not here for work, but because I love listening to you all every Friday. Yeah. But I will say the big news of the week was Mark Zuckerberg's blog post. Yeah. And when it comes to private communication, talking about Instagram, Facebook Messenger,

or WhatsApp. Look, WhatsApp, when Facebook bought it, already had end-to-end encryption. But my biggest thing, as someone who uses all three, is I don't know if I trust Facebook

when it comes to... You don't know? And you don't know? I don't trust Facebook with end-to-end encryption when it comes to the other platforms. Now, I know you all

have been very critical of this, but given their track record and Mark Zuckerberg's, you know, his rhetoric, his speech about end- and Mark Zuckerberg, his rhetoric, his speech about end-to-end encryption with his other platforms, do you all trust that his company can provide that on their other platforms besides work? A hundred percent.

No. Right? So I'm going to bum everybody out. I was just in Africa and I went to the Kigali Genocide Museum. And so as a species, we're really good at genocide. We like to think it happened once in the middle of the 20th century and that we learned

and we got over it. Keeps happening. Keeps happening, literally. In a hundred days in Rwanda, they killed a million people. Yes, they do. And the wonderful thing about this memorial

is that they also revisit all the different genocides that are for Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina. And the one thing that's in common, that you have in common with all genocides is you have a centralized media that someone takes control of. Centralized media is bad.

Bad. And the idea, and I'm not saying anything negative in this instance about Mark or Cheryl, no one individual organization should control 2.7 billion private messages. What he's trying to say is it's very hard for individual people to run. individual organization should control 2.7 billion private messages. It's dangerous. What he's trying to say is it's very hard for individual people to run. It's gotten beyond them in a way that is so far beyond them that it's really a little frightening.

Years ago I was talking to one of the founders of Google. I usually couldn't tell them apart. And I said they were, I think I wrote something when they were trying to take over Yahoo Search, and I wrote a piece saying, the line I wrote, which is a little not nice, at least Microsoft knew they were thugs. And that was tough. And I was saying that Google was thugs, essentially. And they called them all hurt and like, oh, that was so mean, Kara, which I get a lot. And I said, we're nice people.

We're nice people. We're trying our best. That's what they tend to do. And I said, that's fine. And I had been a student of the Holocaust, the German Holocaust. And I said, you know, I don't know. We're nice people. We have good intentions.

And I said, I just wonder if someone like Hitler had gotten a hold of a power like this, what would happen? I said, I think about that all the time. And, of course, they were like, whoa, that's not going to happen. I'm like, well, how do you know? Like, it was the centralization of power among a small group of people is frightening, and it's something that we have to think about. So they've proven themselves time and again to not care about your data since the very beginning. And they continue to do it and then apologize for it. And if it happened once, maybe, it happened twice,

it's happened a dozen times. And it continues to happen. And so at some point you have to say they're either willfully ignorant of what they're doing or they're just doing it. They don't care. And I think it's not inbred in that company to care about your data.

And I think there's a lot of nice people there, and they're lovely. And when they give you the hangdog look of victims, when billionaires act like victims, you just, you know, it's just, stop it. Like, stop it. And the second level here, think about what is the most important process in the world? Is it when a solar flame comes off the sun, source of all life? Is it the moment of conception that creates so much controversy? I would argue that perhaps the most important process in our species is when intention becomes action. When you're thinking something and you're angry or you're depressed or you're happy,

and then how does that translate to actual actions? And right now, the company that decides 93% of the time, 3 billion times a day, when people are trying to figure out how intention is going to become action, when people go on and say, how do I overthrow my government? That's an intention. Is the recommended action a voter registration form

or instructions on how to build a dirty bomb? And one company decides 93% of the time how your intention should translate to action. And I'm not saying they're evil, but should we have one entity deciding that 93% of the time how your intention should translate to action. And I'm not saying they're evil, but should we have one entity deciding that 93% of the time? It's Facebook and Google, right? What's that? It's Facebook and Google together. Well, but Google, search has its own unique intention.

And to get back to antitrust, split up YouTube. Because in the first corporate strategy meeting of YouTube, where they're all trying to get their own jets, they say, how are we going to grow this thing? Simple. Let's start doing text-based search results. And then Google says, you know what, let's get into video. And then we have competitors. Competition is just a wonderful thing for diversity of viewpoint. And one of them might raise their hand and go, you know what, in order to get P&G and Kara Swisher on our side, we're going to be the thoughtful, safe ones that will never, ever have controversial content next to kids' searches. We just won't do it. We will make sure.

We'll spend billions of dollars making sure an intelligence arm of a foreign government can't weaponize our data. Someone will do it. Right now, P&G and Kara Swisher, we have no choice. You have no choice. I think that it took them so long to do this pedophile thing. It's just in the comments. Anyone. It's just, they're not thinking about it.

And because one of the things we talked about recently was proximity. They aren't feeling unsafe. These people don't feel unsafe. They've never been attacked. And one of the big Twitter executives was attacked a couple years, a year ago on Twitter and said, oh, that was hard. And it was like, welcome to the world of women, people of color, gay people,

people marginalized, because that's what they get every day on your shitty platform. And so, you know what I mean? And some of us can take it, some of us can take it, but others shouldn't have to. So it's not that we want to baby people. Anyway, last question in the back, right there. Right over here.

Hi, my name's Amber. I'm a. Over here. Right over here. Hi. My name's Amber. I'm a professor of digital advertising at SMU. Be kind to me. I use your book as a textbook, Scott. Scott. He has a new book coming out called the, what is it called? Algorithm of Happiness.

The Algorithm of Happiness. Thanks. It's clear you haven't read it. No, I have not. The Algorithm of Happiness. We're going to do a whole Rico Dico on it. I'll read it before that. Probably not.

The Algebra. The Algebra. on it. I'll read it before that. Probably not. The algebra. I will read it. You know, you need to start investing in this relationship. Alright, Amber, go ahead. Do you think the aggressive rhetoric against tech by the Democratic candidates will just signal to tech to funnel money to the Republicans out of

self-preservation? Good question. Thank you, Amber. That's an excellent question. I don't know. So first off, I don't think there's so much controversy. I wrote an article in Esquire talking about the size of big tech. And I heard from the same day, Senator Warren and Senator Cruz's office. And I thought this really is a bipartisan issue. They all hate tech. They hate them for different reasons. And the thing that people have to realize about tech, on the right, they say that, well, they're biased against conservative voices. And I think we've both talked about this. We know these guys, when they come into work, they don't lean left, they don't lean down. They don't lean left, they don't lean right, They lean down. They are all about the Benjamins.

They don't care if it's far right or far left content. So the notion that they're being biased. But I don't see money being funneled in. Tech is, geography is important. The majority of tech is in San Francisco, which is crazily left. So I still think you're going to see. They're not as left as you think. No?

You live there, I don't. No, they're more libertarian light. Sort of this icky kind of libertarian. They're not even smart about you think. You live there, I don't. No, they're more libertarian-lite, sort of this icky kind of libertarian. They're not even smart about it. I'm socially liberal. It doesn't make any sense when you talk to them, largely because nobody's taken a humanities course in their life. Facebook is what you get when we replace in high schools

civics courses with CS courses. You get Mark Zuckerberg. Okay. But one of the things, I think they will not. I think they will not. I think they'll sit it out. Like, they think they did sit it out in the Clinton election. They didn't give her a lot of money, but they're obviously not going to fund Trump.

There's no way. But a lot of tech executives are getting pretty involved. I mean, Reid Hoffman, a lot of them are getting involved in trying to... Yes, they will. Some of them will put a lot of money towards it. Some of them won't. But some of them will... I think sit it out is what you're going to see a little bit more.

And, you know, you're not going to see Sheryl Sandberg funding a Republican ever. I don't think that you're going to see that happening. Or some of the others. So I doubt that. What I think is that they are, I don't think they know where they belong, but what's interesting, there was a great story in the New York Times this week

about all the IPOs coming. There's going to be a lot more millionaires and billionaires coming, and some of the new ones are quite... Kylie Jenner, right? Kylie, apparently. But I'm thinking about Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber. The CEO of Airbnb is most

certainly leaning left, like Brian Chesky. And he's been very thoughtful about immigration. Come on. So there's more money coming from not necessarily those companies, from other places. I think the Uber executives might be more. 70% of the senators elected by red states, because a lot of the smaller states that people don't want to live in get two senators and because they don't have the economic opportunity to leave, you're going to see this enormous woke as a business strategy which leads into what I think most of the money is I think going to go to Democrats this time because it show me all the two thirds of the economic growth is moving to 10 cities in the U.S., and it's scary.

But show me someone who's an urban dweller. Show me someone who lives in a same-sex household headed by a same-sex couple. Show me college grads. Show me women who are increasingly economically independent. I'm going to show you a Democrat. So you're going to see in the corporate world all of these companies discovering their new woke values. They're all going to decide they want to support Kaepernick. They're all going to

not all of them, but you're about to see corporate America get in touch with its woke side. It has nothing to do with their principles. It's just the right shareholder. You have to stop saying that word, but go ahead. Go ahead. What's the word? Woke? Woke? Yeah, I just said it. Whatever. Anyway anyway keep going

keep going anyway they're going to be more progressive they probably are going to be progressive that was the theme of the last lesbians who woke

conference was that 10% that was rolling to die right there okay maybe that's the last time we hear from him he was cute.

It was from all it lasted. Lesbians are so far beyond y'all, it's not even funny. You were interviewing the cast, and you were supposed to interview the cast at L Word. How many people here would like me to interview the cast from the L Word? Said no one.

Because I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions. No, said no one never. I'm not even letting you near Jennifer Beals. I'm just going to tell you that right now. What a feeling. Okay, stop. Okay.

And on that note, thank you very much. This is Pivot with Scott Dowd. Texas! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll be doing more of these live shows a lot because obviously, hello. But thank you so much for coming.

And please listen to Pivot and tell your friends about it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everyone. This was our first Pivot in front of a live audience at South by Southwest. We'll be back next week in the studio. Rebecca Sinanis produces this show. Nishat Kerwa is the executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. Thanks to all the extra

South by Southwest production crew. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for more of a breakdown in all things tech and business. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. 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.

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