Pivot - Mark Zuckerberg’s leaky staff and the silver lining to WeWork’s downfall

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

Someone inside Facebook secretly recorded Mark Zuckerberg for two hours and sent the audio to The Verge’s Casey Newton; Kara interviews Casey about his scoop and gets Scott’s take on Zuckerberg’s apparent fear of President Elizabeth Warren. They also talk about why WeWork CEO Adam Neumann may have to go into the Unicorn Protection Program and why the company’s canceled IPO is a victory for the public markets. Plus: Kara dares Twitter to take responsibility for President Trump’s Tweets, and The Big Dog adopts a puppy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. So, Scott, it's a pretty slow news week this week. What do you think? Yeah, I just sort of sit back, you know, pull the lazy boy back, crack open a Mike's Hard Lemonade, and let's examine the shit show that is our life and the world that surrounds it. It's amazing. It's like, this is like every week. Only a couple days was it Ukraine gate, and now we have shooting immigrants in the legs. We've got all kinds of coups. Just in the legs, though, Kara. So much stuff. So much stuff. And WeWork, obviously, continues.

Yeah, but just in the leg. I mean, we're a humanitarian people, Kara, just in the leg. We don't want to kill them. We just want to maim them. We're a humanitarian people, Kara, just in the late. We don't want to kill them. We just want to maim them. Maim them for the rest because they're doing so well already in their lives. We want to just give them that extra little horror show that they can take away from the United States of America. All right. So much to do. But first of all, the big story breakdown, obviously, is we're going to do a little something different.

On Tuesday, friend of the show Casey Newton, who you call Schmacy, from The Verge, broke a big story. Someone inside Facebook secretly courted Mark Zuckerberg, talking to employees for two hours about Elizabeth Warren, TikTok, and his refusal to testify in several countries, among other topics. Scott, you and I are definitely going to have some things to say about this. But first, we're going to play a mini interview I did with Casey on Tuesday, right after he broke the story. And let's take a listen. Cara, thank you so much for having me back on Pivot. Yeah. So tell me, tell us what you did today. You had an astonishing scoop. By the way, you've had amazing scoops all year around social media, including around content moderators on Facebook that were just devastating as far as I was concerned and beautifully reported.

But today, boom. devastating as far as I was concerned and beautifully reported. But today, boom. Well, thank you. So the story today was somebody shared with me two hours of leaked audio from internal Facebook meetings where Mark Zuckerberg held a Q&A with his employees. They could kind of come up to the mic, ask whatever they wanted. And in them, he makes a variety of newsworthy comments about his plan to sue the government in the event that Elizabeth Warren gets elected and tries to break them up, how they plan on crushing competitors like TikTok and all sorts of other things. So there was a lot in there. So let's unpack a couple. The first – go through the main ones.

The first one is suing the government. Yeah, so someone asks, listen, what are we going to do in the event of an attempt at a breakup? And basically, how seriously are we taking this? And Zuckerberg says that in the event that Warren wins, he predicts that there will be a case where they try to break up Facebook. And Zuckerberg predicts that they will win. He says that they just have a better case and that if you broke up Facebook, they wouldn't be as good at fighting election interference and all sorts of other things. Because they've been so good so far. Yeah, well, so, I mean, his argument is because we are big and because we have so much money, we can actually invest in fighting this stuff.

And the dig that he takes at Twitter is, you know, he says this is why Twitter isn't as good at fighting election interference. They can't invest as much as we can. The amount of money we've invested in security is larger than the revenue of their whole company. So that's kind of— Let me just say in the words of Matthew McConaughey in that fine movie that he did, I don't know, How to Lose a Man in 15 Days or whatever,

bullshit. What do you think? You don't have to have an opinion, but it's really an astonishing claim given their poor record, even if they've improved the situation. I see it from both sides because, you know, when Facebook was really small and was limited to college dorms, it was also really good at fighting election interference, right? Because nobody tried because it was small.

Like I think there's a good case to be made for a small size. And I think that sort of the more social networks you have, the more communication platforms it is or that there are, the more friction there is if you're a bad actor, if you're a Russian agent, and you want to swing the election. All of a sudden, you know, what if you had 40 places you had to go attack, you know, instead of three or four? So I think that's a big factor that often gets left out of the size discussion. Agree. I think innovation in small companies, of which Facebook sits over like lard on a, like on chicken soup, is the problem, that there's not enough of these things to be able to do this. And I think to claim otherwise that bigness is great is not. It's shocking from a company that's trying to be innovative.

It sounds like Microsoft, actually, in the old days. Well, sure, and you see this sort of over and over again where there will be some upstart competitor, and Facebook takes it apart, figures it out how it works, clones it, launches it in some other country, perfects it, and then it takes over the world. And we saw it with Instagram stories, and I'm sure we'll see it again. Another part of the story is where he talks about TikTok. Somebody says, hey, TikTok is, you know, up and coming. Like, what are we going to do about it? And so Zuckerberg talks through how, well, you know, we built an app called Lasso, and now we're taking it to countries where TikTok isn't already big, and we're going to perfect it

there. And then we're going to take it to places where TikTok is big, and we're going to compete with it directly. So really interesting insight into how they handle these threats tactically. Well, I call it shoplifting. I mean, why don't they think of this in the first place? I mean, that's really, you know, look, you know, I have my teens, Louie and Alex, they don't use Facebook, they use Instagram sometimes. But I have to say, like, come up with a product as good like TikTok might be a start. Yeah. But you can't because you're too big. So they have a division called, like, it's like New Product Experimentation, NPE, I think it's called.

And they are trying to do that. And they've brought in some founders of, like, social companies that, you know, had initial success. And they're going to try to create a homegrown success. But they haven't been able to do it at a large scale in a long time. It's very Microsoft-y. It's like, why don't we just open Snapchat and copy whatever they're doing? That's what it feels like. It's felt like that for a long time. So in terms of the tonality of this, I think that was what I was struck with. I have seen it, and I know it, and I keep telling people, as he had just been up on Capitol Hill wearing his suit and tie, visiting President

Trump, being super earnest, Senator, I'm here to really cooperate with you. You know, I'm interested in regulation. I'm interested in this. And he just got off with a great, easy fine from the FTC, $5 billion, which should have been 10 times the amount. So why have this attitude? Like, I guess he can't hide it, right? Like, underneath the disdain for Washington and any kind of control on their nonstop party in Silicon Valley, they're victimized if they don't do it. That's what I felt. The victimization, poor little me, that kind of stuff.

Yeah. I mean, I think that, like, in the transcript, there are many places where he is deferential to the government and talks about wanting to work with the government. And of course, it's easy to say that because usually government regulation winds up benefiting the entrenched powers, right? So there's actually very good self-interested reasons to want regulation. And I think Zuckerberg wants them. I think, you know, when you're hearing him say, we're going to go to the mat and fight,

part of the job being a CEO is to be a cheerleader. And when the troops are restless, you stand up and you say, don't worry about it. We got this. We're putting together a team. You know, we're going to go fight them. So I think this is exactly what you would expect somebody in Zuckerberg's position to say. Oh, you're so kind, Casey.

That's why you're so good. That's why this piece is so good. It just lays it out there. It's like, let's hear from Mark Zuckerberg, which I think is important. I think that's true, too. He lets it out sometimes. In interviews with me, by accident, he trips, and then you see. But I think it's really fascinating to hear his voice.

So you really do get his – he really did get his point of view that I am familiar with and I think you are. Yeah, and I think that's why he shared it on his own Facebook page. You know, like in part, like I do think they felt a little bit backed into a corner because it sort of looked like he was, you know, talking about the government behind its back. So they wanted to get out in front of it.

But also like the story really does – Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so Zuckerberg posted it on his own page and said, like, this conversation wasn't supposed to be public, but now it is. Go take a look. The dog eats itself. Yeah, so we do appreciate the link from Zuckerberg there. Thanks, Mark.

But, yeah, they want to kind of take ownership back of that narrative. That's actually a smart move on their part. Where does it go from here? What do you think the impact is going to be? Washington's all like, ah, and, you know, the tractors are all like, ah. And then the tech bros are like, so what? So what? Big deal.

Yeah, I mean, you know, my mentions have mostly been Elizabeth Warren Stan saying, yes, queen. You know, my mentions have mostly been Elizabeth Warren Stan saying, yes, queen. But there have also been a lot of Silicon Valley tech people saying, like, what a smart and thoughtful leader. And honestly, like, to me, like, that just makes me feel good as a reporter. Like, in a case like this, like, who cares about my opinion? Just, like, read it and, like, think about it and reflect on the size and power of this company and what it means and see how the CEO thinks about it and watch him talk about it more candidly than he usually does in public. Like, to me, that's the value of it. So, Scott.

Yes. Schmacy, what do you think? So, well, I want to ask you, what do you think is the most newsworthy item in that story? Or what do you think is most surprising? I think you get a viewpoint of him. I think overall, a lot of this stuff, you know, I think the Warren things, it's not a surprise, of course,

but he hasn't said it publicly. So that's interesting. Like the disdain of Warren. I think the fear of TikTok, which we know they have to have, but he says it, like obviously, sort of his bluster about them because they're real good. I think that, you know, I think it's a very typical meeting that a lot of people are in in Silicon Valley.

But at the same time, nobody gets to hear it. And so he puts on his best, you know, big boy pants and tie and comes to Washington and it's all nothing burgers. And this is an actually interesting discussion. That's my takeaway from that. Yeah, I thought the thing that kind of struck me as someone who, you know, has – I've never managed a big company, but I manage small and medium-sized companies is that people are recording his conversations and then turning it over to Casey Newton. Right. It just – it creates – that would send a chill over me every time. I mean, I don't know how big or how small these meetings were, but it kind of, you know, it's reminiscent of people, everyone deciding to blow a whistle on Mark Zuckerberg.

I thought the interesting thing, first off, you were right, the big winner here is Senator Warren. He's kind of identified her as the most likely candidate to win the nomination. The other thing that was sort of interesting was their strategy to take on TikTok, because if you look at Lasso, kind of their response to TikTok, which is a direct ripoff, it doesn't look like they've been putting the resources into it that they put into other products. And I was under the impression that they were just going to, you know, as you would put it, adopt or shoplift some of the features of TikTok into Instagram and then use their billion users in Insta versus their 500 million on TikTok to try

to overwhelm it. And I wonder, I also wonder if just in the last month, if TikTok has lost any momentum. TikTok is really interesting. I mean, it's clearly, it's sort of at that point where it's either going to, you know, bump up against the Titanic or the big ship, the mothership that is Facebook, and bounce off of it. Or it's going to actually ram it and start, you know, show that there is, you know, the disruptor can be disrupted. But I didn't find, you know, it's sort of, it's like pornography. It's Silicon Valley pornography to hear something that you weren't supposed to hear. But it was sort of like, there wasn't really anything I would argue that surprised me. I thought the interesting thing- Right, but you're an insider, Scott. I mean, here's the thing.

I'm an insider? All the media people's obsession with the leaker. Like, listen to what he's saying. Like, who the freak cares who leaked on him? There's a million people on these things. It happened to Tim Armstrong many years ago. I don't know if you remember with the pregnant thing. I don't remember that. Like, every day, it's happened to Bush. It happened to, remember, Romney or whatever. I mean, this is something everyone's got to realize, that they're on all the time. And courtesy of Mark Zuckerberg, everybody's on all the time. So too bad that he gets taped. I don't care.

Like, it's a typical insider media obsession with that. I don't care. I think it's just a really, he actually spoke like he actually speaks. And he's got to understand that everybody's listening at all times. And maybe he didn't get that lesson. I'm not sure why he didn't. But everything he says is, you know, this is a man that covers up his camera. Like, he's got to know people are listening. And so I do think there's just—the tonality is very defensive.

You know, it feels like I've been in like a Google all hands like this. And they were even more sort of out there trash talking people. I thought the most interesting part, there's so many interesting parts to this, but the interesting part I thought was sort of the trashing of Twitter for what's the point. Like that was petty. It was so Gatesian. It was so Gatesian to me. Who was his mentor? So, I just, he seemed very vulnerable for someone who shouldn't be vulnerable in any way. I thought that was what was interesting about it.

crush them at any moment. Also, the notion, this kind of national champions argument that we're the only ones that can solve the problems of our own making, that size matters. Yeah, they are building. And there is an argument that the amount of R&D they're investing, they're kind of making these nation state-like investments in, quote unquote, cybersecurity or whatever you want to call it, elections hacking. But there's some pretty simple solutions here. One, if they refuse to take any political advertising and they implemented mandatory identification for people on the platform, which would substantially slow their supernova business model. But there are some, I don't want to call them easy fixes, or if they did what, you know, is going to probably happen to them, be broken up. But if they're too big, if they're too big to fail, if they're too big to be broken up and their size creates natural monopoly-like benefits, like a power company, like a utility where it makes sense to have one big player, as he is arguing, then we regulate those companies.

We call them natural monopolies and we put in regulators and we say, okay, we're going to see everything you do. We're going to make sure that you're not squashing competition. We're going to make sure that you're not enabling bad actors. So it's kind of one of the other boss. Either you're too big to be broken up, or you're the only one, the natural monopoly argument, and you need to be regulated, or you're going to be broken up. Yeah, common carrier or something like that. We'll be talking a little bit about Trump on Twitter in the next point, but I do think that they, I think they were super defensive. One thing that continues to strike me about Facebook is, you know, he never talks about products.

Like, he talks about copying other people's products, talks about fighting back at the government. Where's the talk about things they're making? Like, this has always been a company that is not as interested in the product as they should be. And that's why they're just not as, that's why they have to use these, like, muscly things. And I think if he focused more on product and stuff, he'd be better off. His own product that he thinks of himself, not that he copies from other people. This has been an ongoing

story at Facebook. He's always scared of something, and then they copy it, and they're either successful, whether it's a phone, whether it's a, whatever's the hot thing of the day. You know, he's sort of in the only the paranoid survive mentality. But I'd really wish he would just use his creativity and maybe make something fresh and original. And that's my disappointment with Facebook. It's like, it's just dull. It's just a dull company. And I wish he would, I just wish they would focus on that. And maybe it's just not this company. It's a copycat. It's a really good copycat.

And look, Walmart did that a lot. A lot of companies do that. They have one good idea and then they copy the rest of their lives. So I don't know. One question I have for you. So does this make Elizabeth Warren more likable because Facebook is so unlikable? Someone on Twitter yesterday was tweeting, here's how Mark can stop Elizabeth Warren, support her. Well, first off, I don't think it's fair to say they're not being innovative

around new products. I mean, haven't you gone out and purchased the Portal TV? They have now, you know, they now have a product where you turn... Someone gave it to me and I put it in the closet and covered it with a blanket. No, not the actual Portal. They now have a product where you can turn your home television into the monitor for Portal TV and you put sort of a soundbar above it. Anyways, does it make Elizabeth more likable? No, it makes it more formidable. And I think if you, you know, you get asked for predictions a lot. I get asked a lot for predictions around 2020 all the time. And my current prediction and subject to change is it's Warren losing to Trump. current prediction and subject to change is it's Warren losing to Trump. I just don't think,

I don't, she hands down has ran the best campaign by far of the Democrats. She has so much momentum right now. She does look right now, right now she looks like she's going to be the nominee. You know, the, the, and this sounds awful and I'm not, I'll vote for it and I'll canvas for it, but the incredibly impressive older white woman, substantive, who's not likable, we've tried that, and it was a disaster. She's kind of Angela Merkel minus the charm. And I just think that doesn't work. But she right now has the most momentum. It's no doubt about it. She's the one that he sort of has anointed her, you know, one of the brightest people in the world has said she's going to be the nominee. So if anyone came out of that conversation as a winner, hands down, it was Senator Warren.

And by the way, she had 12,000 people there at Union Square Park last week. I think you're underestimating her. You might be right. You know, I'm not underestimating her. I think you're overestimating the U.S. public. And the rot in the Trump administration right now. Yeah, it's pretty ugly. Look at the piece on the –we're not joking about these shootings.

Everybody's dropping a dime. I cover—as a reporter, this is going nowhere but down. Like, everyone's going to, like, drop a dime. Yeah. And he doesn't have control of it. And he's got really shitty people around him. Like, that's—you know what I mean? They're not, like, killers.

It's not like it's, you know, Lee Atwater shitty people around him. Like that's – you know what I mean? They're not like killers. It's like it's not like it's Lee Atwater and company around him. This is like the dumb and dumber. It does feel like the B-League. Yeah. So we'll see. I mean just a lot of his stuff is just a mistake, everything he's doing. And again, as someone who's watched every episode of The Apprentice, this is the moment everybody got tired of him. Like everybody got tired of him. And I remember that moment, and the ratings went down. His ratings were about to dip

rather significantly. Well, it'd be interesting. It'd be also interesting. I've always believed it's all about the economy, that if we go into, you know, if we hit, if, quote unquote, his growth agenda and juicing the marketplace with $2 trillion in debt results in Q1 and Q2 of next year unleashing growth. And there's an argument for it. We'll see. I think people are worried, though. I mean, let me just read a quote from New York Magazine. Thank you for mentioning me in that article and pivot.

I appreciate it. Did I not? No, you didn't. No, it's okay. It's all about you, Scott. CNBC wants to be friends with Jamie Dimon, Masayoshi Son. It's hard to believe that the prom queen is addicted to diet pills and a heroin addict. The fall from grace here has been so dramatic and yet so fucking obvious.

That was a great quote. Thanks for that. That was a hell of a quote. Thanks for that. Yeah. How do you feel about this? Like, it's a distressed asset. That's what you wrote.

Yeah. So, this is, I mean, there's just going to be so much. This is so interesting because I don't think in the history of business we've seen falls this great. We've never seen falls this precipitous or happen this fast. So 24 days ago, Goldman was quoting that or was saying estimating this company was going public at $60 to $90 billion. And, you know, so now it's not only zero. I believe if you – let's play this out, right? So you're the two guys.

You're Sebastian and – who's the other one? Sebastian and Gunter or Sebastian and – Gunter, whatever. No, Martin? Them. Oh, shit. What's the third one? Anyways, they're great.

You're the new co-CEOs. And you have basically six months. They run out of money. They have $2.5 billion in cash. They have to keep $0.5 billion in reserve because of loan covenants. So you got $2 billion to play with, but you're burning $60 million a week or $700 million a quarter, which means you hit a wall, a flaming wall at the end of Q1. And SoftBank is the only one that will put money into this. And there's nothing worse than losing $12 billion than losing, except for losing $14 billion. So

these guys basically have to come back with such an incredible triage plan that says, we're firing 500 people a week. We're closing 40 WeWork offices. We're in negotiations with people everywhere, HR lawyers everywhere, avoiding lawsuits everywhere. lawsuits everywhere. And they have to come back with a plan to Masasan to say, look, if you put another one to two billion in which they will need some additional capital, in two years, if we execute perfectly, if we execute perfectly, this thing might be worth three to five billion. And I think the whole cold, hard calculus that begins to emerge or distill or come into view for SoftBank and Masasan, who was the only source of capital at this point and their only life raft will be, you know what? We should just rip the Band-Aid off now, declare Chapter 11, and then we can blame it on Adam Newman because in three months, they're going to own this. If it goes, the kind of risk-adjusted upside here is going to be much less than the risk-adjusted downside given all the risks.

And I think there's a good chance the next four to eight weeks, we see we decide, you know what? It was Adam's fault. We didn't realize what had gone on here. And they declare bankruptcy through the whole thing. And then they cherry pick out one or 200 offices and restructure the thing, or it might be a prepack. The other interesting question here is on those $700 million of sales, not all of them were sales. Some of them were lines of credit. A lot of them were mortgages on big buildings for Adam Neumann. My question is, and the really interesting question here, and he is absolutely going to have to go into kind of the unicorn protection program. There's going to be such anger towards him. And I'll come back to-

Does he get to keep all the money? It's not clear. Some of it was borrowed, right? Well, that's the correct question. Because if it was lines of credit and any sort of debt, the question is, was it secured by his stock? At which point the people who are screwed are J.P. Morgan and the people who lent him that money guaranteed by the stock, which is worthless because he'll just say, okay, boss, here's your stock if you can't pay them back. What will be really interesting is did he sign personal guarantees? did he sign personal guarantees? Because if he signed personal guarantees, there's a chance we might see two bankruptcies here, a corporate bankruptcy and a personal bankruptcy. So there's the term, the term WeWork, Adam Neumann and bankruptcy are going to be bandied around more in the next, in the next few weeks. But we, this is, I'm obsessed. So do you feel guilty, Scott? the next few weeks. But this is just, I'm obsessed with this. So do you feel guilty, Scott?

Do I feel guilty? Yeah. I feel it's your fault the whole time. I do, but not for this. I have a lot of things in my life I feel guilty for. We is not one of them. No, the problem is the business. You're right. You're just pointing it out. You just pointed out not the emperor, no clothes. There's an enormous silver lining here, and that is that Adam Neumann, SoftBank, and unfortunately, we'll come back to them, the employees, are the ones that incurred $50 billion in notional losses. Had the consensual hallucination gone on for another 30 days, then it would have been retail investors that would have lost $50 billion.

They would have incurred the downside here. So I actually think this is probably the biggest victory for the markets, although it's already queered the IPO class for 2019. Remember our prediction at the beginning of the year that the IPO class would lose more money than it made? We're about to get there. It got off to a strong start. Now they've almost, you know, two-thirds of them have lost money. So on a gross basis, the IPO class is probably going to be a net loser by the end of the year. Everyone's saying we're going out later in the year. Airbnb looks at the shit show that is these IPOs and says, we're going to do a direct listing. I mean, there's so many ramifications. The NYC and the NASDAQ are going to get hurt. Investment banks are going to lose IPO fees. There's a whole ecosystem

of lawyers. The whole entire IPO has been threatened by this notion. Yep, Scott, all because of you. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You're going to take Trump down. There's a bunch of hounds, but there's only one dog. That's the Grande Pharaoh. Here he is. Look at him. He's just back from the groomer. There is going to be no living with you anymore. Anyway, it's time to take a break. When we get back, we'll talk about wins and fails and our predictions this week. We'll be back after this. 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. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers

all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim.

And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk. And we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Okay, we're back now. We talked about Facebook. We talked a little bit about your we, your we situation, we Scott. Scott, there's a lot going on this week. What is your first win or fail?

Well, first off, Kara, and you don't know much about me because you continue not to make the requisite investments in our relationship. But we, the Galloways, got a new puppy. We got a dog. Is that a fail or a win? Well, I don't know. We'll see. That's a big commitment. It is a big commitment to join our—we have a dog, a 13-year-old Vizsla, a Hungarian Vizsla,

who's just been kind of an enormous source of joy for us. And we got her about the same time our oldest son was born. But anyways, I really wanted a steel blue Great Dane. I grew up with a Great Dane. I think they're just such gentle giants. I've just dreamt. Great Dane? That's your dog?

I want two things. I want two material things in life. I want a steel blue Great Dane, and I want a Bombardier Challenger 300 with a D-Von 10-seat configuration. To put the steel blue Great Dane on, presumably, because you're not going to ever travel again. If I say to people, hey, let's go to Vegas, like, I'm not going to Vegas with that guy. But if I say, hey, let's go to Vegas, like, I'm not going to Vegas with that guy. But if I say, hey, let's go to Vegas, I'm like Challenger 300, they're like, yeah, I'll go with that guy. He's interesting.

So, anyways, that's not going to happen. So, I kind of deferred to the steel blue Great Dane. Totally indulgent. Way too big a dog. And, of course— It's a huge frigging dog. They're enormous. I have, like, rescue dog. Tiny rescue dog.

Well, okay. So, that's the story. So, my family, of course, comes home with a rescue dog from Puerto Rico that we think is a dachshund. I'm not sure. It could be a Doberman as far as we know. But I was thinking, Kara, I think it's nice. I was all bummed out at the beginning. Like the only thing I wanted was a steel blue great dame, blah, blah, poor me.

But I think it's nice. I was thinking about the fact that I get overridden so much as a function that I have attached to people and that I'm no longer in control of my life. In the short term, it's sometimes frustrating, but it's a good thing that there are people that just have taken away a lot of my decisions, if you will. So you didn't get this dog. You don't have this dog. Oh, no. We have a dog. We have a tiny little—we think it's a dachshund.

I don't know what it is. I mean, he's a lovely little guy. What's the dog's name? Well, that's the thing. I had a naming contest on Twitter. And everyone, the two biggest names were Newman and Gangster. And so, of course, I loved Gangster. And I did my best job on my 9- and 12-year-olds.

I'm like, we're calling it Gangster. And they said they thought it was hilarious. I'm like, no, we want to call it Felix. So, Kara, we settled at Felix. Oh, my God. So, Felix, the rescue dog, is now in the Galloway household. The Felix is a cat, a wonderful, wonderful cat. Oh, that hurts.

Oh, you're right. There was a cat named Felix. You should have stuck with gangster. And that one you should have made up and taken the name. I don't get the Jed. I don't get the Great Dane. I get the rescue Puerto Rican mutt called Felix. Someday, I'm going to get you a Great Dane someday. I appreciate that. For your dotage. I'm going to get you the Great Dane. I get the rescue Puerto Rican mutt called Felix. Someday, I'm going to get you a Great Dane someday.

I appreciate that. For your dotage. I'm going to get you a Great Dane, and then it's going to make you break a hip, and I'm going to feel slightly bad about that. Yeah, those things get hip dysplasia. I'm going to get hip dysplasia pretty soon. Probably not. The two of you can have bad hips together. I probably wouldn't feel bad.

There you go. There you have it. All right, so your win is your dog. My win is my dog. I have two fails. Do you have any fails? I have two fails. No, go ahead.

Go for it. Right. So the first is I think that in every cohort, if you will, there are laws that we're all subject to. But every cohort kind of has its own code, and that is a certain set of rules that they abide by. And academia, for the most part, like venture capitalists, we don't say critical or we try to avoid saying outright critical things of each other. There's peer review where you actually question each other's research. But as a whole, you don't see a Harvard economist calling a University of Chicago economist an ass or an idiot. You know, then VCs, have you noticed venture capitalists? It's full body contact competition, but they never, they have kind of this white guy cashmere club, as you

would call it, where they don't say – never anything negative about each other. World leaders have a code, and that is they don't assassinate each other. They've decided if we start killing each other, it's just generally bad because we're all kind of – Well, every now and then, but go ahead. Yeah, but for the most part, we're really fond of this thing called life. So as a general rule, we don't assassinate world leaders. And we also, as a rule – the mob has a rule, and that is they don't go after families. They don't kill families because they're all fond of their families, and they sort of have an

unwritten pact that we don't go after families. I would be, if I was Donald or Ivanka, or what's the other one? The one that's on us all. Eric. Eric Trump or Tiffany. I'd be very worried right now because what basically what Donald Trump has said is that it's okay to go after kids. And when he enlists foreign governments to kind of go after Hunter Biden and basically accuse him of things that he could end up in jail for and use the office to attack the children. Well, except they're not true, according to every single report. But go ahead.

If they were, well, look, according to Fox, there's real credibility there. So I believe it. Whatever. Anyway, at some point, there's going to be another president. And at some point, that president's going to have political allies across the geopolitical spectrum. And what if that president decides to go after, you know, Don Jr.? I bet there's a—it just—he just doesn't get it. He doesn't realize, look, you don't go after people's kids with these BS accusations and trying to enlist foreign governments to go after people's children.

Yeah, he'd never do that because he never does anything like that. Come on. This is like his whole jam is just fucking with society. It is so short-sighted, and it shows such a lack of perspective around his own family. It's a total break of code. He's a toxic narcissist. How else would he do this? He doesn't care about his kids.

A tarsicist. A tarsicist. He doesn't care about his kids. A tarsicist. A tarsicist. He doesn't care about his kids. And then my other loss is that people, or I don't think the media's been focusing around we on what is kind of, in my view, one of the more interesting stories, and that is just 30 days ago, there were 3,000 to 5,000 new millionaires. And that is the employees that had been at we longer than two or three years probably all had at least a million dollars in equity value based on the valuation they were certain they were going public at. And I've been in these shoes before when I was in my

early 30s and Red Envelope was supposed to go public at a $600 to $800 million valuation. It is impossible when you get near the goal line not to start counting your money. It's impossible. Oh, I know that, yeah. I heard from someone from WME this week about that. They're like, I was buying a house. Well, it's impossible. Not buying a that, yeah. I heard from someone from WME this week about that. They're like, I was buying a house. Well, it's impossible. Not buying a house, no. It's impossible for your husband not to be looking at bigger houses. It's impossible not to call your parents and say, hey, let's start looking into that family cruise and

reunion we've always wanted. It's impossible to think, wouldn't it be great to get a two-bedroom and think about another kid? And you can imagine 3,000 to 5,000 people have literally gone from, say, $1 million to $10 million in wealth they had to zero. And it's like, oh, well, okay, it's easy to be cynical. It couldn't happen to a nicer group of people. But you know what? That's a lot of heartache. And you're about to see a level of animosity unleashed. Think about this. I'm a nice person. I work hard. I make $130,000 as a VP of operations at this cool company called We, which after taxes, isn't a lot of money, barely enough money to think about a kid living in Hoboken or Brooklyn. And all of a sudden,

oh, but wait, I have $3 million in We, and I've worked my ass off for the last three years and listened to all this Jesus talk, but it's finally paying off. I'm finally going to have a nest egg here. Oh, wait. Am I going to have health insurance? I mean, that's the question now. Am I going to have to apply for COBRA to have health insurance? So there's, I think, the real toll here.

Everyone's talking about SoftBank. Who gives a fuck? They're going to be fine. Yeah, I don't care if they lose money. It's the real tragedy here. If there is a tragedy is the employees of We who are really, I would imagine, really feeling hurt right now. You have ruined the Brooklyn real estate market single-handedly. Do you think? I feel great because I can buy there now. But here's the deal. It's not just them. It's also like I've heard from people at William Morris and some of the other companies, you know, that have seen real declines. We never talked about WME.

We never talked about that. It's a collection of great assets that aren't profitable. So I always thought, how does this thing get out? Yeah. It didn't. It's kind of adventures, Hollywood adventures in private equity and rolling up. It'll be interesting to see. ventures in private equity and rolling up, it'll be interesting to see. There's actually a clause in there, if I read the S-1 correctly, that their core asset, which is the UFC, the cage fighting,

is if they didn't get it public, it reverts back to KKR, I think. And that's kind of the crown jewel. So it's going to be very interesting what happens there over the next several months. Yeah, they've got to pay the agents more. There's a lot more. There's got to be a lot more investment, just like with the way, you know, these agents can go anywhere. I think they're nervous. And by the way, this is not a group of people that likes to, you know, will just tuck their tails in and be sad, you know, you know, at a coffee shop in Brooklyn that they didn't get to have the, you know, house they wanted, the apartment they wanted. This is a group of people who are super aggressive. And smart.

And by the way, very talented. the apartment they wanted. This is a group of people who are super aggressive that don't like this. And smart. And by the way, very talented. Full disclosure,

I'm represented by WME. If you are wondering why on earth a guy like me has representation, trust your instincts. But it's kind of, it makes sense.

They represent Oprah, Adele, and a dog. And a dog. I had meetings with them. There you go, WME. I had meetings with them. I'm not represented by anybody.

I've had meetings with all of them. I don't want to be represented by anybody. Oh, you have scary representation, and her name is Kara Swisher. That's right. I just feel like every time I'm in these meetings, I'm like, I'm smarter than you. Like, I don't know. That's dangerous.

That thought is dangerous, by the way. They pet you, don't they? They bring you special drinks and stuff like that. They're actually super smart people. I know they are, but I don't care. Super smart and creative and, you know, and they see you. I like the WME people. I do.

It's just I don't care. You know what creative and, you know, and they see you. I like the W&A people. I do. It's just I don't care. You know what they do? You know what they do that's interesting? And this is what's interesting about representation of any sort. It's easier for other people to fight for you than you sometimes. It's easier for them to have interesting or difficult conversations. And also a really good fiduciary or evangelist for you, whether it's a mentor, whether it's an agent, they can see you in a different light. And that is not even necessarily a better light, but they see you in a different light.

And the reality is— I don't like people fighting for me. Oh, Kara, everyone needs people fighting for them. I'm like the Irishman. Everybody needs people fighting for them. I want to see that movie so badly. That's my win. Everybody needs someone fighting for them.

All right. Okay. So you say. Not Kara Swisher. In any case, my fail of the week, I wrote a column in The New York Times about Mr. Trump on Twitter. Now, interestingly, I didn't say for them to kick them off, but everybody took it that way, which was fascinating. I just suggested that he's a dangerous— Your article is getting a lot of pushback.

It is. It's not just pushback. Say you think—you wrote that—summarize for the people out there. I'm going to represent you. I'm going to pretend I'm Erica who fights for you every day. Tell us about that article. Tell us about that seminal piece that's created all this stir. I was just making the point that he's continually violating it.

And this one that he did sort of halfway with the pastor, you know, using his talking about civil wars was dangerous. And, like, think about it. Think about what you're allowing your platform to be used for. And then last night he did it. It's a coup, a regular impeachment inquiry, which is completely normal. It's not completely normal, but it's not out of bounds of this country. It's done in the correct process, just like the whistleblower is, has been doing things the correct way.

He's saying words like coup on twitter the president is i'm just saying this is this we're in a different zone and maybe you should uh maybe we should think hard about what this means and everybody came in there wasn't a lot there was there was also support of it it's really interesting kamala harris for example was like kick him off twitter but other people had good ideas. Maybe limit his likes. Maybe not limit retweets. Maybe do something to indicate that this kind of language, like the president of the United States saying something's a coup that is dangerous. And you can just look at any of the rules of Twitter that he's done. And I'm not saying it's an easy situation. And I wrote, they'd be daunted by the incredible responsibility.

And so I just want people to think about what is happening here. Because essentially, it's been hijacked by those who want to take, as I said, advantage of its porous and sloppy rules and poorly enforced rules. And so it's just an interesting situation. And it's scary. And I wanted to point it out. And then everyone's got on their high horse, whether they're like, First Amendment,

which I'm like, it doesn't apply to Twitter. Like, I just have to sit there and explain people what the First Amendment is, which is exhausting. And then free speech. And I'm like, not so much. It's not really a thing, actually. And then you have others that say, knock them off of Twitter. I just want to hear all the things. I was just trying to cause a ruckus, which I think I did.

So you right now remind me of Toronto, Denver, and Columbus, Ohio, when they submitted their RFP or their proposal to be the HQ2 of Amazon. And it's just so adorable that you think that you have any chance this is going to happen. Oh, I don't think it's going to happen. Oh, I do not think it's going to happen. Oh, I do not think it's going to happen. All you need is a stock chart of Twitter from the IPO to Donald Trump's election. It basically gets cut in half. And since the day he was elected, it's doubled in value. Yeah, but look what happened when I started suggesting regulation four years ago.

Donald Trump has given Jack Dorsey a half a billion dollars. Every employee at Twitter is going to go into that voting booth. I want them to feel bad. And they're going to poll Trump. No, I'm going to tell you I want them to feel bad. I want them to feel terrible. I want them to feel awful about what's happening on that thing. And that's my job.

I'm just going to point it out. I am so addicted to Twitter. You're not addicted to Twitter? I am a little bit, but that's okay. If it went away tomorrow, I'd be fine. Like, I don't care. Like, I like it. You know, it's like I liked a lot of things.

And so I think that they – I think it's just an interesting thing just to – you're like hyper-cynical. I think there are – once you start – like, WeWork, you suggested the math issues. I have people fighting for me, Kara. No, I'm just saying you suggested WeWork's math was off, and look what happened. I suggested a couple years ago that maybe tech responsibility is something we should think about and continue to bang on that drum and look where we are. I think we do have it. We're fucking nowhere. Yeah, look where we are.

Bang louder. Bang louder. You need representatives banging with you. We need champions. Where's Erica? Don't try to get me an agent. Oh, God. Why would I pay him 15% of my creativity? I would love to represent you. Unless I have to, like a lawyer. Unless I have to, I'm not hiring. Oh, God, that's scary.

I hire smart people who work with me. That's what I do. That's not to say I don't have smart people. Anyway, we're not going to argue about this. You need people to pet you up and down all day. That's what you need. Yeah, that's exactly what I need at this point. You need a Great Dane is what you need.

Now, predictions. Predictions. That'd be awesome. Okay, so I'm the one-trick pony here. In the next 60 days, we have a bankruptcy at WE. Okay. And so 60 days, bankruptcy. All right.

And then what is the next Jesus founder that's going to be ousted? You know, that's a really—I read that in the script. I don't know. I haven't—I mean, I've been so focused on this is, you know, right now there really is only one Jesus and he's in, you know, the Unicorn Protection Program. We haven't seen or heard much from him. You know these people better than I do. Is there anyone that kind of is guilty? I call it the Yoga Babble Index.

Is there any company or individual who you think is kind of off the Richter scale in terms of their level of ratio of bullshit? You know what? Companies used to have numbers in the narrative. So someone accused Mark Benioff of this yoga babble and talking about society. But when you deliver the numbers first, you have the right to engage in some yoga babble. And it's actually a good thing. It's numbers then narrative. And what a lot of young CEOs in the unicorn era have flipped is they think they can skip the numbers

part and move right to the narrative around improving the world. But do you see that ratio of yoga babble to bullshit? What company are you looking at now? Yoga babble or not? Which one are you like, no, no, no, no. So the company I would love to see numbers on is Palantir. Yeah, that's interesting. I would be very curious to see what that looks like, and I'd love to see the S1 on that. We will. WME didn't get out. I didn't think that was Yoga Babble.

I thought that was just a collection of assets. They were trying to pull a WPP where they smooth out a bunch of great assets, but the problem was WPP was very profitable and WME wasn't. I just couldn't figure that out. Peloton is probably going to get pelted. It's a great company. It's wildly overvalued. But I don't see – I'm trying to think if there's another company that's engaging in this sort of yoga babble.

And I don't. I haven't identified it. I haven't seen the next one. And also I wanted to – Well, Uber. You've been whacking at Uber. Well, that's old news. That thing's off 50 to 80%

in the next 24 months because they've got to maintain the growth story. Who is going to play Ronnie Mola for MeCode? Asked on Twitter who will play Adam Neumann in the movie.

And one of our producers, Eric Johnson, said it should be Adam Driver who plays Kylo Ren in Star Wars. That's perfect. You like that? That's perfect. I like it.

Although, I'm absolutely lobbing my, or throwing my hat in, I'm going to play Rebecca Newman. Don't you think I'd be an awesome Rebecca Newman? Seriously, look at me. Imagine me with black hair and like a dress. By the way, I have more legs than a bucket of chicken as a woman. I have perfect legs for a woman. Anyways, and I just want to be in this scene where she meets with people for five minutes and says, I don't like your energy. You're fired. I like that. Oh, my God.

I don't know if that's mythology. You do that already. I think you do that already. I got to do an investigative look into Scott Galloway's company. I'm going to talk to your employees and see what they have to say. Chipotle, After Hours of Little Cialis. That's about it. That's about it.

Who's going to play you in the movie? Who's going to play Scott Galloway in the movie? If you could pick and it's not Scott Galloway in the movie? If you could pick. Bruce Dern. And it's not Scott Galloway. Bruce Dern. We're bringing back Bruce Dern. You don't know Bruce Dern?

Oh, my God. Of course I do. That's perfect. Coming home. Yeah, I know. Everyone says that. Either him or we're bringing back underrated tennis star Ivan Lindell. Either Ivan Lindell or Bruce Dern.

The big dog story. Ivan Lindell? Yeah. And by the way, not that I'm obsessed with... The tennis player? Remember him? Yes! Let's get creative. You need a representative to be creative. See me with a different light. That's right. Oh my god, what do you work for?

Ari Emanuel? He calls me now and again, you know. Does he? He's a funny guy. I'm thinking of bringing him back to code this year because he was so crazy when he was there, but I think maybe not so much he's going to want to talk right this year. I like the idea of the two of you next to each other. That's definitely a chocolate and peanut butter. Oh, you'll be on the stage for that one.

Oh, yeah. That's right. Because he's scary. He'll scare the shit out of you. You always promise that. So, Kara Swisher, what are you up to? We're talking about code. Code's like seven months off, and you're already pimping it.

I'm already pimping it. I am working on that. I'm doing lots of stuff. I'm going to have a baby soon. Not me, me and myself, but my girlfriend. I'm doing lots of stuff. I'm going to have a baby soon. Not me, myself, but my girlfriend. I just think that's crazy. I'm doing tons and tons of interviews. We got a live pivot in New York in two weeks, I think.

We've got a live pivot in San Francisco. It's pretty much Scott Galloway and the baby. That is really my life at this point. It's a sad situation. That makes me feel warm all over when you said that. That was nice. Thank you. And only one of them is whiny, crying, and spits up all the time.

There you go. They're both adorable, though. They're both adorable. Yeah, that's exciting. Exciting for you. Exciting for you. That's what you tell the dog and Scott Galloway. Sit.

All right. Enough of us. I'm sick of us, and I love us. All right. We got a piece out here dog and Scott Calloway. Sit. All right. Enough of us. I'm sick of us and I love us. All right. We got a piece out here. Wrap it up. Bring it home. I've got to go out and buy canned food for my Civil War 2020 bunker. Anyway, I will

talk to you next week. I'm so excited for you and your dog and everything else. And really, you did a great job on WeWork. I kid all much, but really it's a public service, you pointing that out. Yeah, right. And us amplifying it. I think you're being generous, but thank you.

It's a public service, Scott Galloway. I salute you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kara. Today's show was produced by Erica Anderson and Eric Johnson. Thanks also to Rebecca Sinanis, 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 suggestions for what you want to hear us talk about on the future show, send us an email, pivot at voxmedia.com. We got to bring back some reader mail soon. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. 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,

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