Pivot - Medium's "Shampoo Effect," and Tesla, coming undone?

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

The hosts opine on Medium, L'Oreal, and Quora. Scott critiques WeWork's EBITDA reporting, as well as the final GoT plot. Kara's back from Canada and her interview with Ev Williams, and now gearing up for the Code conference in Arizona. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Nissan Kicks is the city-sized crossover vehicle that's been completely revamped for urban adventure. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new Reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com 2025 dash kicks available feature bose is a registered trademark of the bose corporation hi everyone this is pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And this is Scott Galloway.

How you doing, Scott? How's it going this week? I was in Canada, just so you know. I just missed Justin Trudeau. I didn't see him when I was there. How do you get 60 drunk Canadian fraternity members out of your pool? I'm so—I don't want to know, but go ahead. Guys, could you please get out of the pool?

That's good comedy. That's good comedy. That's good comedy. Yeah, okay. Why were you in Canada? Oh, no, what else? I was in Canada for Collision. It's a big, giant conference, a big, messy conference. And I was there to interview three people.

Alex Stamos from Facebook. These are all going to become podcasts. Who's now piled on. Who's now decided that Mark Zuckerberg has too much power. Oh, he does. Yes, I know. Thanks, Alex. And then Ev Williams, who was the founder of Twitter.

He's also the CEO of Medium. And he's a big investor. He was a big investor in Beyond Meat, for example. So he's done rather well there. And so we were talking about all kinds of stuff there. And then I had to do, just so between us, I had to do a thing where people talked to me. And I felt like it was a stage in the middle of this big, noisy CES-like conference.

Right. And like hundreds of people showed up. And they all loved Pivot. It was so funny. They're like, what's Scott Gowling? Yes, yay for us. Yay for us. They were like, what's Scott?

People hugged me. People hugged me for this and Recode Decode. It was very funny. It was really, they asked what you really like. All the Canadians were super polite. See Alice in Netflix. Boom. That kind of summarized erectile dysfunction and quick serve Mexican food.

I did not say that to the Canadians. That's not what you say to Canadian people. They're very pleasant. Anyway, it was very interesting. But one of the things I want to talk about was the interview I did with Ev talking about Twitter. And, you know, he pulled himself off the Twitter board. He's no longer affiliated with it except he owns stock.

And it was really interesting. I think he had some thoughts about what, again, once you've left, what a healthy discussion should be online. And he felt like it really had taken a turn and he was talking about the idea of whether there could be a better turn for a lot of these companies.

And I was sort of like, I don't see any of these being funded because of the size of these large companies. There hasn't been a new social network since 2011 when Snapchat was founded. And so it was a really interesting discussion. And then, of course, this week it got toxic as ever with Trump going crazy on Twitter again over Nancy Pelosi dissing him, apparently. Well, look, Twitter's benefited hugely from the president. And so back to Evan Williams,

I just like, I don't know him, but I just really like him because I think medium is a wonderful property. Do you use medium? I don't, but he talked a lot about it and like where he's going with subscriptions and things like that. Tell me why you think it's an interesting company. Well, just because, quite frankly, like everything I like, it's been really good for me. It's this wonderful place where storytellers get more oxygen. So if you write something somewhere, actually Medium would be very good for you, I think.

But it takes content and it creates a shampoo effect. And that is, it circulates it across a larger audience. And they have this interesting technology where it will highlight what readers found was the most compelling part. I don't even know how they measure this in terms of engagement of the actual content. And it's also a, to his credit, the gestalt or the vibe on Medium is very positive. People are very supportive, very friendly. So it's a place for the written word.

Right. That's what he was talking about. That's what he was, he was focused. I was like, are you going to get into podcasts or video? He's like, no, because I think there's a lot of innovation to be done around the, you know, where a new media company is going essentially. But he's experimenting with like traditional journalists, which have worked in part and not worked. He started a bunch of different magazines. But I think he's really relying on authors going in there more than anything. And subscribing. That was the idea of a subscription. What do you think about that? Like the idea that's really where his business is going. I think it's working. Look, he has the capital himself probably to do this at a decent clip and not need to be worth five or ten billion bucks.

But I'm into this notion of organic intelligence, and it goes to another story I think we're going to talk about, Quora. And that is, I think technology's root and where it's good for mankind and what it was meant to be is, okay, we have an excavator that can lift 10,000 pounds of dirt and iron and steel, which a human can't. But you need the greatest processor in the world, and that is the gray matter between our ears, to help guide the excavator. And while the entire world seems focused on replacing humans with technology, I think the bigger opportunity is what I refer to as organic intelligence, and that is how does technology leverage a skilled, trained individual? And to a certain extent, Medium's an example of that. Quora,

which is this kind of human-powered search engine, which says you have a question, you can type it into Google, and you'll get some good stuff and a lot of crap. Right. And there's a lack of nuance. But if you say on, you know, if you go on Quora and say, what's the difference between going to Columbia and NYU, you'll get a thoughtful answer from somebody who's probably in admissions or has been to one undergrad and one grad. And it's got, I think, didn't you guys just report it raised money to $1.8 billion valuation? Yeah, we did that. We reported that.

Teddy Schliefer reported that in Recode. It was a $2 billion valuation, something like that. It's very high. It's quite high. So people were sort of wondering why it something like that. It's very high. It's quite high. So people were sort of wondering why it's worth that. So explain to the people why you think that because you can be pretty hard on valuations. Well, this one might make sense. So 200 million monthly active users, which is pretty impressive, right?

So you have the population of the western United States or the eastern. I don't know. 200 million is a lot or Central America. I don't know. I need to find someone who has 200 million population memo to self. But it also, you can think about the advertising opportunities. If you type in, if you type in, I'm searching, you know, what's the difference between a Buick LaCrosse and a Chevrolet Suburban? That's a pretty good opportunity for an advertiser. I mean, the targeting, if they can figure out the technology

and tools that Facebook has brought to bear in terms of an ability to recognize intent and an opportunity and then insert an ad or a thoughtful conversation or even what I'd call sort of sponsored experts, which I don't think people would be that averse to, there's a lot of opportunity here. I mean, another example of artificial intelligence or organic intelligence besting, in my view, this AI world. You have, do you remember all these makeup apps where you could go onto your phone and it would take

a picture of your face and then it would send you back and you'd look like Bozo the Clown. It was just terrible. It just didn't work. L'Oreal has launched something called

Color & Co. We're using an app that connect you with Andre, this great colorist at a high-end salon. So you have some help. Yeah, and he advises you. And to me, that's where the future is. And that is how do we scale, again, this is incredible artisanship and productivity of so many people out there with technology. And I think that's, I mean, to a certain extent, although I rag on them all the time, Uber and Lyft are effectively technology on top of abused labor.

But still, there's a lot of value to be created. The whole world's focused on replacing humans. That's not the key. The key is to enhance humans with technology. Enhance, enhance. Enhance, there you go. Do you want to be enhanced? If they came to you and said,

we're going to put a chip in your brain and make you speak seven languages, would you do that? I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in.

I'm in. Me too. I'm in. What about exosuits? We're going to have a lot of this stuff at Code where you're coming. We're going to have jetpacks. We're going to have all kinds of mobility stuff, all this

drones you can ride and things like that. Would you, if you had an exosuit, would you wear it? This is to make you stronger. Oh, I'd do anything that would make me stronger. I'd take creatine, other than steroids. I was on testosterone therapy for about a month until I became so jumpy that I decided, okay, I'm not going to do that. But a suit you could put on

and just be just as strong so you didn't have to have your body be fixed, but it would help. A suit, a stronger suit? Yeah, it's clothes. Clothing that will make you stronger. Everything, I know nothing about this, every technology you're going to have a code, you should short that company. Whenever you see something in the conference hall of a conference. We don't have a hall. You'll see. You're wrong. You're wrong.

We have launched so many big companies at our different events. We have launched lots of dogs, too. No, we did. You know, Jawbone, even though the initial Jawbone was launched at Code, the whole bunches of companies have been launched. Jawbone? Sonos? Sonos? Sonos. Sonos.

Sonos. Another weak flex from Kara Swisher. No, Sonos was. And then Bing. Bing. We're going to Bing it. Oh, wait. Hold on.

Come on. You're exactly making my point. No, we had some good ones. I'll make a list of good ones. You're exactly making my point. Jawbone and Bing. Bing. Bing.

What's next? We launched Netscape. What's next? No, we didn't. Seriously. It was too early. Anyway, let's move along. Oh, wait.

Speaking of failed technologies, the curveball here, it's not even in our script. What do you think of the new augmented reality Google Glass? I don't care about Google Glass. I mean, it's literally like these guys have said. They keep trying. I believe in augmented reality. I just don't believe in Google Glass augmented reality.

Yeah, but they know you said that. So instead of calling it VR, they call it AR. I just don't believe in Google Glass augmented reality. Yeah, but they know you said that, so instead of calling it VR, they call it AR, and it's basically... I believe in that. I would like to go, like, I'm going to Paris

this summer, and I'd like to look at... Well, there's got to be something. It has to be a heads-up display of some sort, right? Where else are you going to get it? You roll around in aviators, because like me,

you think a lot about how you look, right? Right, of course. You're not going to wear Google... No, I want my aviators to have heads-up display No, I want my aviators to have heads-up display. I'd like my aviators to have heads-up display. Google Glass is not a wearable. It's a prophylactic ensuring you'll never have children.

I said that. I'm telling you, if you're at dinner— My famous line was that Google makes supermodels unfuckable. That's what it was. There you go. Literally, if you're at dinner— Remember they had supermodels when they first introduced it, wearing them? And I was like, wow, that's—

Yeah, the Diane von Furstenberg fashion show. Dion. It's Dion. It's Dion? Yes, it's Dion. Oh, I didn't know that. Anyways, I'm scared of her husband, so I'm not going to say anything. He's great.

But literally, if you're at dinner and you're thinking, I don't want more kids and I don't want to have sex, pull out your Android phone, pay for dinner with a Discover card, put on your Google Glass, and then talk about how this weekend you're going to practice your magic. Boom, no children. No children for you. No sex for you. I'm thinking of learning magic. I think it would be cool to do some tricks.

No. Anyway, listen, listen. We're going to move on. Speaking of magic, we had a prediction, your Tesla prediction. Oh, yeah. You're totally...

South by Southwest. You went on a rant about Tesla, as I recall. Okay, so March 10th or 11th, I predicted or we predicted that Tesla— It was a rant. It was a rant. This is the year that Tesla comes undone. Right. Look, it's very simple.

Greatness is accomplished in the agency of others, and when you see the hemorrhaging of talent at Tesla, that is just an incredibly negative forward-looking indicator. When we made that prediction, Tesla was at about 300 bucks a share. It closed below 200 today. And I think it's, and this will go to our prediction, but I literally think Tesla is coming undone. And of course, they're now saying, oh, well, what about China? And this guy literally is, talk about the master of over-promising and under-delivering. Here's some of the commitments he's talked about.

A million autonomous cars from Tesla within a year. So we're 11 months out from a million autonomous cars from Tesla. Let's keep track of that. Now he's talking about 1,000 satellites from SpaceX. I'm sorry, 6,000. Now he's scaled it back to 1,000. And we'll have cheap broadband for all the world. That's going to be tough

to deliver against and now he's trying to create another illusionist trick to pop up a prop up a stock and talk about you know china being a huge market for tesla tesla now has approximately the same market cap as ford tesla will produce i think three or three hundred and fifty thousand cars this year do you know how many cars for Ford at the same valuation will produce this year? 50 billion. 50 billion. Close. Seven million cars.

Seven million. So, and the illusionist trick is to try and convince people that, oh, Tesla is not a car company. It's a tech company. No, it's not. They have to bend steel and make these things called cars, which is a shitty business, a low-margin business. It is. So anyways, I think Tesla, it's going

to be very interesting what's going to happen. I think investors are finally getting fed up with... So what will happen? Although people love the Teslas. My brother just bought one. They love the... It's a great car. It's a great car. So what? So what happens? Because Bezos just said he was interested in automobiles. Would you

think he would buy that company or do something with it? Well, so that's the prediction and we're stealing our thunder. But my prediction is within 12 months, Tesla is sub a hundred bucks a share and it probably gets acquired because there's real value there. That's the tough one. That's the tough one is who would buy them. Because automobile companies who are the best acquirers, even if it goes from $35 billion to $17 billion and pay a premium to $20, $25 billion, there's maybe one company that could buy a couple. Maybe Toyota, maybe Daimler-Benz. But that's a bet the farm kind of – bet the ranch kind of bet. The guys that could acquire it that have the balance sheet are the tech companies, but they don't want to go into a low-margin business. Right.

So would Google start to see the car as a platform for more advertising maybe where they're autonomous driving technology? I mean, it's a sooner or better. What do you think? I don't think Google would buy it at all. But it's getting to the point where if it gets cut in half, which I think it will in the next 12 months, it could be a potential acquisition because it's a great brand, it's a great product. But in terms of the banter, do you hear out there who would be interested?

Would Amazon be a potential acquirer? Amazon possibly. He just said he just indicated he's interested in cars, so Amazon. And they don't have a good relationship from my perspective. I don't think they're very – I think there's a lot of competition there, especially around space. Sword fighting with their dicks in space, right? My rocket's bigger than your rocket. I mean, it's just totally ridiculous.

Thank you for boiling that down into a very clear metaphor. Thank you for that. It's what it's all about, Kira. I was only saying I don't think they're fans of each other. It's what it's all about. You're getting the twins. Anyway. It's what it's all about, Kira. I was only saying I don't think they're fans of each other. It's what it's all about. You're getting the twins. Anyway. What's important.

Why do I even know this about you? I don't even understand why. Women do not. Well, they do name. No, they don't. Anyway. So, anyway. So, it would be Amazon.

There would be obviously Toyota, Daimler-Benz. I don't think one of the big American car companies would buy it. That's buying a lot of trouble. They don't have the money. You know what I mean? Yeah, they don't have one of the big American car companies would buy it. That's buying a lot of trouble. They don't have the money. You know what I mean? Yeah, they don't have the money. American cars don't have the money. Yeah, they don't have the money.

So I think it's probably Amazon or obviously the Chinese companies can't really buy it. So maybe a Daimler-Benz or a Toyota, I would say. Yeah, it'll be really interesting. Okay, so I've been really good for the last 12 minutes. I haven't mentioned something that is really the only important story of the week. All right, all right, because then we've got to get to a break. What? What?

Oh, come on. Read my mind. Go ahead. I don't know. What huge event has taken place in the last seven days? I don't know. What? Google?

Oh, come on. What? What? I'm sorry. Winter came and went. Oh, my God. No, no, no. We're not talking about Game of Thrones. It's not happening.

Come on. Just a little bit. Just a little. You'll love this. Two seconds because then we're going over. You aren't outraged by this? You aren't? Did you see the finale?

You know what? If people spent more time worrying about our country than they do about the writers of Game of Thrones, it would be a better country. Okay, fine. I mean, everybody spent a lot of time discussing whether it should be right. And literally, I would love them to talk that about infrastructure. I'd love them to talk about our broken legislative system. I would love to talk about our crazy president.

Like anything else. But no, no. Game of Thrones needs to be rewritten. And literally everybody jumped on board. But go right ahead. I'll stop talking. The world will stop talking about Game of Thrones if we acknowledge we need more engaged fathers and not a better fucking phone. And you stop talking about Steve Jobs like he's Jesus Christ.

Deal? He's not Jesus Christ. He's not Jesus Christ. Anyway, go ahead. Game of Thrones. Go ahead. I'm shocked. I'm shocked you aren't outraged by this because it's basically like Jordan Peterson went into sci-fi.

The way to summarize the finale is the patriarchy wins. So they have the strongest character up until the last season, Daenerys, basically gets in a mood, finds a dragon, and goes apeshit crazy. It's like, the basic lesson is do not trust women with power.

Jon Snow ends up being the thoughtful guy who goes back to a life of celibacy and kind of saves the world and sacrifices himself. Sansa,

who should have been king, basically, she's like when you walk into a room with all white dudes and boards, which happens to me all the time, and you see one woman. I'm like, oh, let me guess. You're head of HR. They made her head of HR, right? They gave her a small kingdom.

She's the most talented person in the room, but they gave her a small kingdom. She's going to take over, but go ahead. And then my new role model, my new role model is Bran. The guy is totally checked out, takes off for several years, comes back, and is basically really high sitting next to a tree, and they make him king. That's how I want to spend my weekends. I want to be really stoned, sit next to a tree, and then at the end of the weekend yell, King me! King me! I can do that.

That's what the Unsullied wanted, from what I understand from my children. I can do that. That is what the Unsullied wanted. I'm shocked you're not outraged about the last episode. I don't like that they made the woman the villain again. Yes, that was a very typical thing. I would have liked her

to not have been the villain. That would have been nice. So I literally caused the riot. But you know, Arya is the real hero of that story. Arya saved the day and she's off to the new thing. She is.

Arya is the best. She's the best. And she left and she's sailing and becoming Christopher Columbus. That's her whole thing. It would be nice if there was a sequel about her, but that's not happening, according to HBO.

So what's HBO going to do? That's the big question. I'd like you to think about that in predictions. When we come back next, we're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll be back with Scott Galloway and Pivot. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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So wins and fails. Let's hear a couple. You go first. I'll go first. Well, I think the idea that Marguerite Vestager, who I've interviewed many times, and who's fantastic, might be the head of the EU.

She's been running the competition part of that commission for a long time and has recently stepped down. And I thought she was going to just get another stint at doing that, but now it seems she might get the whole enchilada, as they say in Europe. She's really fascinating. She's driven tech companies crazy with all kinds of fines, and she's been sort of the voice of sort of the conscience of tech for a long time, one of the very first people to speak out.

I did a great interview with her at South by Southwest. I'm going to do one in Brussels in the end of June again. She's really smart. She talks about the idea of we've chosen the convenient over the good. She talks about privacy quite a bit. She talks about the idea of we've chosen the convenient over the good. She talks about privacy quite a bit. She talks about all kinds of things. I think she would drive Donald Trump crazy as the head of the EU. So I'm really excited for her to do that if she gets the job.

And she's also – they made a TV show about her. She's so fantastic in her country, in Denmark. Anyway, your thoughts. I'm going to pile on. That's my win, too. I think the two gangsters who are really important around the general notion that a key step to tyranny is a lack of countervailing forces to private power. And I think Lena Kahn, who most people don't know, who's now working for Congress looking at anti-competition. And Marguerite Vestager is—and by the way, the G is silent if you're kind of exotic and cool like me.

Vestiaire. Vestiaire. Vestiaire. I should smoke a clove when I say that. Anyways, she is, and people always say that she hates big tech. She's actually very even-handed. She got in the way of the merger between Alstrom and Siemens saying it would reduce competition. She went after Nike for charging too much for jerseys.

She told AB InBev that they were abusing consumers. I think she's really even-handed and thoughtful. And she knits. What's not to like? She knits. She knitted on stage with me once at an event. But one of the things that's interesting about her is she's very much talking about what technology does to us.

And not in this, as you said, it's in a very even-handed way. And I think she's talking about alternatives we need to have. You know, she talked about this idea that we choose convenience for good. The choice between convenience for good is a big one. And she's not like, don't use technology.

Although she certainly doesn't use Google or anything else. She uses other, I forget the one she uses in France, the search engine. But she's really, she's got, it's very hard to find her. Do the French have a search engine? They do. There's other search.

I interviewed the CEO of DuckDuckGo last week in New York at an event there. And he was fascinating, a total geek, and really interesting about it. They have, I think, 1% of the market, which doesn't seem like much, but the search market is huge. DuckDuckGo? Yes. DuckDuckGo. And they do,

you know, his whole premise was that very much like others, is that they don't need to do behavioral advertising. They can do contextual advertising and make tons of money. And the fact that when they move into behavioral advertising, that's where they run into all the trouble. I mean, I thought that was an interesting—you imagine the contextual advertising business,

which essentially you search for a car, you get a car ad, or you might get a bike ad or something that's related versus behavioral where they build these profiles of people and try to serve up, you know, highly micro-targeted stuff. It sounds like a perfect candidate or technology to present at your conference because that shit's going nowhere, Cara. Tell me why. Shut up. Go ahead.

No, I had him at an event, a small event. I'm not having him at the conference. But why did that? Because it's not going to be big. You have to have behavioral advertising. Because we have unfettered monopolies. And the only reason they're still alive is because Google said,

no, no, keep them around so we can say we have competition. With literally 24 hours, Google could do whatever they call their panda thing and put DuckDuckGo out of business. It's already out of business. They're going to let them survive for a little bit. Except that, therefore, we have to have regulators like Marguerite in place in order to stop that. But I'm asking you is what do you think about the idea of behavioral versus contextual advertising? So throughout marketing, the primary form of targeting has been demographics.

So we assume that all people of a certain age and a certain ethnicity want to buy the same things. And it's been pretty effective. And it's actually been a great way to sell advertising because it's, you know, I don't know which 50% of my advertising is wasted. I know 50% is wasted. I just don't know which in the industrial complex of advertising has benefited from that. Contextual is trying to just basically figure out a way to say, all right, we're in the right environment, you know, as evidenced by the term contextual. But the real gangster move here that built hundreds of billions of dollars in value is the ability to behaviorally target. And that is if a 22-year-old Latina who wants a BMW versus a 65-year-old retired white guy, the reality is if they are both on BMW's site outfitting the BMW, we know they're

both into BMW regardless of their demographics. So behavioral targeting, quite frankly, has resulted in a reallocation of hundreds of billions of dollars in the advertising industrial complex. What's your fail? So my new kind of... Besides the Game of Thrones finale, which I know you're very disappointed. Oh, well, it's over. Move along. And I tell you what, you know what they could have done? They could have just had the last scene be the dragon melting the throne. Boom. Anyways. Okay, so my fail,

the most overvalued company, private company in the world, went public, Uber, and it's going to get cut in half from here. Right. And now the new- From here, which it was already cut in half. So 30? If you were to take Uber

and say it was worth $35 billion, I think you have a difficult time justifying that valuation, which means that it's, that's, and by the way, that's half the valuation right now. Yeah, exactly. I do think the market is starting to exit this hallucination phase.

I think we're all, the lights are coming up in the club. We did X for as long as we could. And it's like, oh, fuck. Now it's bright outside. And I mean, we're looking at this stuff. By the way, another one of our predictions that the unicorn class would lose more money off of the first trade.

I think that's already the case. I think if you look, some have done really well. Beyond Meat, obviously. Zoom, great company. I think Slack's going to do really well. You and I love Airbnb. But anyways, the most overvalued company, private company in the world, is now no longer qualifies because it's a public company, Uber. And it's now the most overvalued public company in the world.

But the other, now the most overvalued private company in the world is WeWork. Oh, we love to whack on that guy. All right, go ahead, whack away. Well, okay, so loses as much money as it makes, leases companies for 10 years, and then marks it up by putting in really interesting cultural and, you know, amenities and a vibe. I think they do a great job, but it's amazing. I mean, think about it. If you're a small business person, you're paying $10,000. It's costing them 20 to house you right now. And there's nothing, there's no network effects. There's no real technology here. And when shit gets real,

you know, the terrible thing about recessions is they always happen. The wonderful thing is they always end, but they do always happen and we're overdue. And when you wake up to this company with 10-year leases in a recession where people are no longer willing to pay this kind of money or don't want or just decide to work out of their den or their homes, this company goes from negative 100% EBITDA, which is a new record, to negative 200%. And the thing that really bothers me about WeWork is that when a company feels like they have license to start inventing their own accounting standards, and rather than now reporting EBITDA,

and now rather than reporting EBITDA like most companies, they've decided, they've come up with a new metric called community-based EBITDA. I mean, pretty soon they're going to say, like, EBITDA for them is going to mean earnings before everything else, right? That's what we want to talk about. That's an old trick. That was an old trick of AOLs. They all have done that. That's exactly. And look how that movie ends. So the most overvalued private company in the world,

WeWork, if the markets screw up here and let this thing go public, it could literally torch the entire market because this thing is really, in my view, they got valued at $40 billion, or I think they were out trying to raise it $40 billion for a company that just economically absolutely makes no sense. Anyway, community-based EBITDA is my fail of the week. What's your fail? Did you do a fail? My fail? Yes, I didn't do a fail. I'm going to do a fail. I think Trump having the fit at Nancy Pelosi. He bites every time she picks up,

she puts the football out, he kicks it and falls over and she pulls it away. I just am like, I am fascinated by that relationship. I oddly ran into her at an event this week and sat down with her and of all people, Hillary Clinton, which was really interesting to have the two of them together. I'm sorry, you, Hillary and Nancy? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It was weird. It was Washington. It was so Washington moment. I just hope there's not a dragon involved. Watch out. You guys get a dragon and watch out. I would use that dragon frequently. So anyway, so I was really fascinated by his reaction.

And of course, it seemed like he had it all planned because he had that weird sign, which was weirder than ever the sign that he had in front of the podium of the White House which is like we have gone real downhill here and I wonder who made that sign that sad intern I kept thinking who's the sad intern who had to make this

and then I thought it must have been Jared because the font was all off but I was fascinated by that because he seemed to have planned his little thing, but she seems to have won that. You know what I mean? Like, it's interesting.

I don't know. You know, this is all inside politics, but I sort of was fascinated by how, you know, how you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And this is a very hot kitchen in Washington. And it was, I don't think it matters, but I think it was a fail. I think it was a weird,

it was a weird fail that he keeps walking into with her. And she's, and she plays it beautifully, I think, I don't know if you think that. The House Speaker, you know what, the House Speaker, she's a gangster. I mean, she has, and I'm going back, I think I'm, I'm, Senator Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi have sort of made me revisit the notion that in my ages, because I didn't support either of them because I, bottom line is I thought they were just getting too old. And it bothers me when these senators, and it's almost always been male senators,

who decide that the Senate is their retirement home. And you know what? She's amazing. She's just, I think she's just been an incredibly thoughtful, measured, and I mean the clap back. She doesn't have an incendiary tone to her. She's just literally the adult in the room. And she seems to control the caucus really well, too.

Yeah, and there's a bigger thing at play here, and you'll love this. I went on Fox last week, and it was capitalism versus socialism week at Fox. They actually had that week. And wait, just so you know, it's clear that socialism probably won. I'm going to bet that socialism won. Anyways, but there's so much BS or there's so much misunderstanding out there around what actually socialism means. And tariffs are an enormous kind of socialist act. It is.

And we have this tariff war. I agree. enormous kind of socialist act. It is. And we have this tariff war. I agree. And it feels like up until now, the markets have largely shrugged off a trade war, believing that saner minds would prevail. And I think what we have now is the market is starting to go, wow, this could get ugly. The Huawei thing is pretty serious. Right. They could bar other American companies there. Apple has lost the value just in the last, I think, three weeks of almost every media company or just add up. They've lost $70 or $80 billion. They've lost the equivalent of Ford and BMW because of this. At some point, she's going to say, you know what,

or is going to go, all right, we're going after the heart of America. We're going to go after Apple. And I actually think Trump's right on this one. It's just, of course, going about it all wrong as opposed to doing it multilaterally with Europeans who's all alienated and speaking with a much bigger stick. What he fails to realize, they keep saying, well, we're a bigger economy. We can hurt them more than they can hurt us.

And he's absolutely right. But the problem is it's similar to when we went into Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh said, look, we'll kill some of their people. They'll kill a lot of our people. They will tire and they will go home. We can hurt China more than they can hurt us, but China will close down towns. They'll close down entire cities because of this. If we close down a farm, we have MSNBC out there and Trump says he's going to bail them out. We do not have the tolerance or the stomach that China has to disrupt our economy. They play for the long game. And you're seeing Apple starting to go, oh, no, this might – shit might get real around – this is going from a border skirmish to an all-out trade war.

And who's handling it? The worst businessman in the world, as evidenced by his tax returns. Literally the worst businessman in the world is now in charge of multilateral talks between the two largest economies. I think you're 100 percent right. I think you're exactly – he's directionally correct and tactically wrong is typically in this case. Better said. That was better said. Thank you.

Pithy. I'm a pithy person. So your prediction was the one you made earlier, which was Tesla, right? Sub-$100 talks about acquiring or actually going private. And it won't be at $420 a share. I want another small one then since you did it before. Do you have another small prediction? Well, let's do one about politics.

Do you have any predictions around politics? I do not. I do not. I think I do not right now. I'm interviewing Pete Buttigieg soon, which I think will be interesting. That'll be really exciting. That should be good. I have lots of questions for him. I think Warren will become more and more popular. I think there's something she's hitting.

I was with 10 different people, not in Washington, in other places that are regular people, I guess. Regular people who seem to be intrigued by the stuff. They like her. I'm sorry, define regular people who are regular people? Well, not like Washington creatures. Not Washington creatures.

Got it. They were just intrigued by her policy. The people do want to talk about substantive things, and I do think people are interested much more in substance than people realize. I think this whole like noise fest is not what people are interested in. So we'll talk about the patriarchy you've seen. OK, so we have we have Kamala, who's probably the most qualified candidate. We have Senator Warren, who is arguably the intellectual leader of the Democratic Party right now. She's the only one that actually can go beyond a talking point and talk about this stuff.

Although Senator Bennett just put out a plan on climate change that I thought was pretty substantive. But she is really the intellectual thought leader. She's willing to actually put stuff down on paper and do the work and take a stand. But what do you know? Who are the leaders? By far, who's crushing it?

Two old white guys in their 70s, right? Biden and Sanders. I think that's because there's a differentiator. Do you want to win or do you want to take the high road? And I think that's the split. I think that's the same thing with the impeachment. Do you want to win or do you want to really do what's right? And so that's, I think, where we are as a country

because I think at least the Democrats are so desperate to get rid of Trump that they are going to go with what works. And that's just where we are. That's an interesting point. So I have a question for you. Do you think the Democrats should start impeachment hearings? I do not. I don't think it, I think it's largely ceremonial because it doesn't go anywhere in the Senate.

And I think they should, I don't say beat him at the ballot. It just doesn't, it just creates havoc. And we have to, it just doesn't, I don't think people, I think people are, they want to talk about real topics and there's, they want things to move forward and it only creates more acrimony and means no legislation and his stupid tantrum, which he looks like a big giant baby, which baby Huey that he is, but it doesn't, it doesn't get us where we want to go. And I don't, I don't think people have less interest in that than, than anything else. And so it's too confusing, too. It's very clear that

Mueller wanted Congress to act because he couldn't. And so it doesn't really matter. People just don't want the grifter to get off. Well, we might have to let the grifter off and win on the things. And so the question is, can we have

an election free of interference by foreign bodies? We'll see about that. But we can talk about that next week. There you go. Scott, thank you so much. What are you doing for Memorial Day? I'm going to the beach. I'm going to the beach.

Where is the beach? With a lot of family. A lot. Like, way too much family. Way too much family. Okay. When you say beach, where? Rehoboth.

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. My friend has a house. Rehoboth? That's right. That's where I'm going. I do not. For some reason, I just don't see. I could have guessed a thousand beaches, and I wouldn't have said Rehoboth.

I just happen to be in D.C., and so therefore, that's where I'm going. And then I'm getting ready for code, and I'm very excited for you to come to code. I am. Everyone says, I get invited to the one in freaking Arizona. Everyone says that place you used to have it is beautiful, and I end up in the desert. Well, we i end up in the desert we had to move it i'm not even going to go into why we had to move it it's union issues that we could not go over but it's not it's not a different one it's the same conference it just we had to move it that's just the way it goes do i look like someone who gets a hot stone massage do i look like i need a hot stone massage i think you need one for sure

seriously we're putting you in a beautiful, one of the most beautiful resorts in America and you're complaining, but that's all right. Who are the one or two speakers you're most excited about? I'm doing the Kellyanne Conway. Buy her jewelry. I'm totally pimping you right now. Who are the one or two speakers you're most excited about?

Other than me. All of them. I like all of them. I think all of them. The head of YouTube is going to be there, right? Yes, Susan. Susan yes that's right yeah yeah yeah doing tremendous damage

to the world I'm looking forward to meeting her okay good okay well I want you to get up and ask questions of her anyway Scott

we got to go all right Kara happy Memorial Day how's your book signing going you know Stephanie Ruhl Total Gangster we hosted 400 people last night at Stern

thank you thank you for asking it made me feel very loved and appreciated yeah your book is doing well right yeah it's doing yeah it's doing 400 people last night at Stern. Thank you. Thank you for asking. It made me feel very loved and appreciated. Yeah. Your book is doing well, right? Yeah, it's doing.

Yeah, it's doing. I've sold, literally, Cara, we've sold dozens and dozens of copies. Okay. Read Scott Galloway's book. It's called The Algebra of Happiness. Thank you, Cara. Thanks for that. You should buy it. I'm hoping to go to your book party in New York next week, in two weeks.

Oh, it's going to be fabulous. Anyway, all right. Thanks for that. I'm hoping to go to your book party in New York next week, in two weeks. Oh, it's going to be fabulous. Anyway, all right. That's great. Okay, Nishat Kerwa is the executive producer of Pivot. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for more of a breakdown of all things tech and business.

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