Pivot - Meta Verified, SCOTUS, and the Future of the Internet

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Kara and Scott discuss Don Lemon's troubling comments, the high cost of shooting down UFOs, and Amazon sealing the deal with One Medical. Also, Elon Musk and Tesla return to California. Plus, Mark Zuckerberg wants us to pay for Facebook with the new Meta Verified, and the Supreme Court hears two cases that could impact Section 230, the internet's most important law. Listen to Kara’s latest episode of On with Kara Swisher, “Will Killing Section 230 Kill the Internet?” here. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. And so I hear you want to talk about Don Lemon, Scott. Dilemon! Don, I'm sorry, Cara. You are past your prime. Not in her prime. Nikki Haley is in her prime. Sorry.

A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. What are you talking about? That's not according to me. Prime for what? You are past your Amazon prime plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. Your womb is a barren field for which no seed can find purchase. Oh, thank you, Scott. Let's talk. Can we talk about that? Can we go off script? Go ahead, please. Because I would

have handled it. I mean, I thought Poppy did a great job. She's a friend of mine. So you're siding with the woman here? That is really unusual. Stop, stop. Come on, it was so stupid. Go ahead, tell me, tell me. Well, no, I'm very serious. I actually think it's funny on certain levels, serious on others, and also indicates some interesting things about our modern-day society.

I'd love to hear your view. I have a view on it. Well, should you go first? So you can shame me? Yes, that's correct. So like when Obama was debating Romney, please continue, Governor. Please continue, Scott. I thought it was really interesting and a good learning moment. And that is, first off, just because you're a gay man of color doesn't mean you can't be incredibly tone deaf and, quite frankly, stupid. And what it comes right down to, in my view, is that I don't think we recognize, if you go to the very core, how powerful instinct and evolution is. And that is,

we overvalue and we assign more value to men who have resources, specifically tech billionaires. We're under the impression that they're godlike. We assign too much value to them. And we assign, on the negative side, too little value to women who are no longer in their childbearing years. Because once a woman, I mean, if you think about it, the world is kind of optimized for two people, rich men and young, attractive women. And we kind of discriminate against everyone else. And I find that this was just this naked, tone-deaf response to this notion that somehow once you're out of your childbearing years, you somehow lose value. And it's just such a primal, stupid thing to say.

Yeah, it had come a couple of weeks after he said another stupid thing about sports. The thing he said was fair, but the way he said it was tone deaf, but go ahead. Well, the other thing is, Sam Harris has said this, one of the great things about our species is that we can apologize and we can accept apologies. And he apologized. I think he knows it was stupid. I think it's actually spawned a really important debate. And if you think about, I think the most important leader of the last 30 years

in terms of a steady hand was probably Chancellor Merkel. Yeah. And was elected, you know, a quantum physicist, a quantum chemist, excuse me, elected to office at 51. But we have these, the whole point of being a modern person is that you can modulate your instinct. And our instinct is to be so drawn to men with power, which in today's age is money, that we afford them way too much license and to diminish women who are outside their childbearing years. And it's just like everyone's instinctive

go-to. But I think we should accept his apology and learn from it. I also think it's hilarious that it's happening on CNN quite frankly. I know. I mean, that show is now attracting attention. I don't think it's good attention. Scott, I have nothing to attack you on there, I have to say. I thought it's nonsensical and also obvious at the same time. Again, I know Don really well.

I know all of them on that show and i and poppy is a friend of mine um is is it just her sitting there in her face going like this like oh yeah you fucking yeah i like you're kidding me women swallow have to swallow their rage they do they absolutely didn't swallow it she walked off but she i know what she i'm sure she wanted to say what what the fucking hell. She kind of did, though. Yeah, she did a great job. She's a class act. She didn't say, let's cut to the weather.

I mean, she got back in his face. She did. She's a great, she's an undersung broadcaster, I think. One of the things that's interesting is over on Fox, the two men, Greg Fathead and the other guy, Jesse, whatever the fuck, did an even worse thing talking about women are in their prime in their teens, started to make sort of weird, creepy, Matt Gaetzian-like comments. And the three women just sort of looked down, looked away, didn't know what to do.

It's just, it's not, it's like, and then if you say, shut the fuck up, men say, oh, you're humorless. It's like, you know, what I would have done, it was interesting, I thought, what would I have done in that situation? I probably would have thrown it back at Don and said, well, I mean, you're pretty old. What, how old are you well you look really good I mean you could lose five pounds but you know otherwise you know your skin looks pretty good except for right there like I would start doing the same things back at him um that he was essentially doing and and not see how he likes it but how does it sound it sounds terrible no matter what he does it just was it was so stupid. It was just stupid.

I don't know what else to say. And that people, I know people think those things, but at some point it's not woke to just shut the fuck up about stuff like that. Just like you can't say everything you want. You can't, you can't, you can't in life. And I do think women learn a lot quicker what not to say than men do. And I think men, when they are told something they can't say, lose their fucking minds about everything. And it was interesting.

It was interesting. They still have to get that show right, right? It doesn't really matter. The ratings are off. They got to get people watching. It shouldn't be because the guy said a dumb thing, you know? This is, I think it goes for a broader issue in our economy, in our society.

And that is, if you think about, so my professional rock and my partner for literally the last 15 years is a woman named Catherine Dillon, who's my age. Yeah. And we both observed, A, there's huge ageism in the workplace. I remember I hired a guy to be an engineer on

our tech team who was in his 50s. And he would walk into a room and I could see all the other 28-year-olds making 180 grand a year because they'd taken a general assembly class in Ruby Rails. They'd look at him like, dude, what happened? If you're not a CEO or a pretty senior by the time you're in your 50s, people literally look at you like, oh, you must be really bad at what you do. Otherwise, you'd be running that. You should be. I'll be running this place in 20 or 30 years. And two, the sexism, I've talked about this. I think that the educational industrial complex is biased against men. I think the labor force is biased against women. It just is. The workforce is biased against women, specifically women once they have children.

The corporate world has just decided that once you get older and you have kids, we can't maintain your corporate trajectory. And what Catherine always says to me, and it's just amazing. It really is amazing. How many professional women are there out there in their 50s and 60s? They just give up. They just leave. If they have any economic security, if they have any options, they're like, I've had it with this shit. It is not easy to find a woman in her 50s or 60s who hasn't pulled the ripcord. Well, hi. Nice to meet you. Well, I get that, but you're exceptional. But don't you agree? They're literally like a unicorn. Yeah, I do think there's women leave faster because it does get a little tiresome.

Interestingly, I don't get as much incoming as other women do. I think people are scared of me. I think that's right. I think I present, you know, Audie Cornish said something. I'm interviewing her this week and she's getting a big award. Really love her. She's a great podcaster and broadcaster. Former CNN host who was asked to stay on, unlike the other very famous CNN Plus host. Well, she's very talented.

Still waiting for that guy to call me, Chris Lick. Chris, you don't have my number? You missed us. She said, I treat some men like some men treat women. You know what I mean? It was interesting, and I keep thinking about what that means. But it's interesting when I have my own experience. But you're right. People are not. It's just like, really? And if you have enough money, you just don't have to deal with it. It's really interesting because I thought about it in terms of our dynamic.

Because sometimes you say things that are not things that are to my liking and vice versa. And I think one of the ways to handle it is not just a learning experience, to really hash it out. And I think one of the appeals of the show is we actually hash it out. We don't put apologies. We don't do this. We have a real tough discussion and we're willing to do that with each other. And I think people feel relieved because we don't pretend it does one thing. If you say something that sucks, it doesn't suck. We don't pretend. If something is just not that bad, we laugh about it, right? And so I think one of the hard parts about that is it becomes this mini stupid drama that's like, oh my God, are you still arguing about this shit right now

in 2023? That's to me. But what you're saying is super important in the educational environment. And that is I'm purposely provocative and say off color things in class. And there's a pause. I'm like, well, make an argument against what I just said. And let's all learn from it. And by the way, if the person said something incorrect, you can forgive them and they can learn and we can all move along. I worry that in universities, and I've always said this, we don't want to produce wokesters, we want to produce warriors. And progressive thought has a lot of merit. Its home is in educational institutions, and I think there's a reason for that. But we also have to

have these discussions. And at the end of the day, it just may make your viewpoints stronger. But we've gotten to a point where when someone says something, rather than saying you're wrong and having a discussion, it's how can I shame you and potentially take action against your career? I know we're back to that, but Don said something stupid and we should shame him. He's apologized and it's been a worthwhile conversation. It's been productive. Yep, yep, absolutely. Anyway, today we'll talk about the Supreme Court cases debating the very nature of the internet. Also, Facebook's newest feature looks a lot like something from Twitter. And we'll hear from a listener who thinks someone is ripping off his family.

Couple little things. Let's do them very quickly. The price of Netflix is going down, just not in the US. The streaming giant is cutting prices in dozens of countries across the Middle East and North Africa, in some cases by as much as 50%. I assume this is on the advertising things. Does it feel unexpected to you? So in the world of brand strategy, we always talk about there's this kind of age-long conflict, and that is globalist versus localist. Do you have one product, one package, one price, and try and position it in a homogenous

way around the world? And then there's localists. And localists say, let's hire talented brand managers who figure out consumer patterns unique to that market and then adjust for the pricing, the packaging, the product. So there's sushi in a McDonald's in Tokyo. You can buy a beer, et cetera. I'm a localist. And I find whenever you find people trying to be globalists, it's some guy at headquarters looking for a bigger job. find people trying to be globalists, it's some guy at headquarters looking for a bigger job. And what this is simply, as I see it, is they recognize that 12 bucks a month in some countries is just untenable. They're not going to get market penetration charging people as much as

they might spend on several meals. So I just see it as just pure local brand management. Yep. Second one, the U.S. military shot down three unidentified flying objects, as we know. Turns out they spent at least $1.5 million to do so. They don't know what three of them are, I guess. The price tag does not include

the resources used to search for debris. I just, I think it was worth the price. I don't know. What about you? I think that's the best money the government

spent in a while. I know. I don't know. I mean, we spend a lot more and a lot dumber things than that on the government. So I say give them some practice. I think the pilot that got the order to shoot that thing down is more like yippee fucking coyote. I know.

I felt all maverick about it. No problem. Aye, aye. Roger that. Yes, exactly. Roger that, Houston. Target practice. That bitch is coming down.

Yeah, target practice on the prairie dog over there. Yeah, 100%. I'm good with that. And the last thing, which I think is funny, Tesla will establish global engineering headquarters in Palo Alto, which is apparently in California. Elon Musk announced a decision at an event with Governor Newsom. They're back to be friends. vision and event with Governor Newsom. They're back to be friends. Just to remind you, in 2021, Tesla moved its headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas, after Musk called California the land of taxes, over-regulation and litigation. Tesla faces regulatory challenges in the state,

including accusations of deceptive marketing and a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, which is coming up. I just love that, Gavin Newsom. You love Governor Newsom? Look at this. How did he get this guy to do this and also slap him silly publicly? I don't know. I think it's great. I'm not sure he got him to do it. I mean, there is something for all the shitposting about California. If you're an incredibly bright, ambitious young person who's credentialed, comes out of a great university, you's this, you feel this giant sucking sound

towards the Bay Area and California. There's still a culture of innovation around media and around tech that is unrivaled globally. Unrivaled. And they attract, I mean, you just meet, I talk to a lot of second year MBAs and they just kind of like go west young woman. Just so many of them think, I'm going to LA or I'm going to San Francisco to be in tech.

And that's the secret sauce. So I don't think it's any- I know, but this is a guy who insulted the state about his jury in San Francisco was woke or whatever the hell he was saying. They let him off. He just loves to insult California. And then they do the right thing. Welcome back to California, Elon. That's what I have to say. Yeah, there you go.

Amazon has completed its acquisition of One Medical. The company has officially acquired the healthcare provider for $3.9 billion after the deadline for the FTC to challenge the acquisition passed. One Medical has 200 medical offices and over 800,000 current members. Amazon will discount first-year membership fees for U.S. users regardless of prime status. While the FTC is publicly struggling to keep up with mergers, the commission could still take legal action at a later date. I was always like, don't touch this one, Lena Kahn. I don't know. What do you think? I think you're absolutely right. First off, I'm a paying member of One Medical, and I love it.

I think it does a great job. I think healthcare is arguably the most disruptible industry in the world. You know, it's raised prices faster than inflation for 40 years. You know, one in five people are happy with their healthcare. You can't name an industry that has consistently raised prices, and 80% of your customer base doesn't like it. They do a great job. They leverage technology, remote health. I think when I got COVID, I went online.

They said, okay, they can not only prescribe me Paxlovid, but they could tell who had it in stock and sent me a map of how to get there. I'm joining again. I joined many years ago, and then I stopped. I like most of my neurologists and cardiologists, but with the sickness, Amanda's really sick too. Thanks, kids. I was telling Scott before, I've lost like 12 pounds. And what did I say?

What? Your only one stomach flew away from your target weight. It's true. That's from the Devil Wears Prada. It's either a Sempic or toddlers, and either way, it works. But we were like, what do we take? I call my brother, right? I don't have a person.

It's really hard to get a personal physician anymore. Like, you have to wait on a wait list. Well, there's a word for that when you call your brother who's an MD and the head of anesthesiology department at UCSF. It's called privilege care. It's called privilege. No, it's because my brother's not UCSF, it's CMPMC. In any case, I shouldn't be calling my fucking brother about medical advice. Yeah, I agree. And I was like, I'm joining one medical again. This is fucking ridiculous. On these illnesses, like for my heart and maybe gynecological stuff. I'm not going to one medical for that.

But I get sick 10 times a year now, like or whatever. It'd just be a lot easier just to go in. The stuff you get every year, whatever this is, the rotavirus I had, the RSV before that. I just think it's a great service. I liked it when I had it last time. I agree. Speaking of losing weight, I lost weight going to the doctor last week. I went to the dermatologist and it's literally, her name's Dr. Christina Lampour. Did you get that ward off your head?

No, I still have that. She tried to freeze it off, but that bitch isn't going anywhere. Seriously, that thing's staying there. Anyways, but it's literally, I could tell you what she's going to tell me. She looks at everything. She's like, well, we got to take that off. I always want to touch it, but go ahead. Thank God. I haven't heard that in a while. Anyways. I really want to take a knife to it, but go ahead.

She'll say, it's either we got to take that off or we got to take that off and test it. Yes. Yeah. So I get that call from Dr. Lamport yesterday saying everything came back negative. You're fine. But I literally, the dermatologist is, I kind of like going to the doctor's office because they seem very concerned about me and they touch me, which are things that are lacking in my life. Okay. All right. But it's just hilarious. I go to the derm and they like take everything off. I have scars all over me. Yeah. Anyway, I think this is the

right move. We'll see if she comes after this one. There's so many correct things to go at Amazon for. This is not one of them. Same thing with MGM. Oh, and just being of antitrust, we were circling, or I was circling that core issue here. Antitrust is supposed to be either too much power in the channel, brandusian, or the BORC is, it's bad for consumers and would raise consumer prices. And that doesn't apply here. Amazon coming into healthcare should make healthcare more competitive and healthcare desperately needs more competition. This is actually, I mean, if the FTC could ever encourage things, this might be one they would encourage. So this would make no sense. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. The Supreme Court has heard the arguments. Now it has to decide on the future of the Internet.

This week, the nation's highest court heard two cases that could impact Section 230, the law that protects online platforms from lawsuits over their users' posts. Both cases claim that online platforms contributed to deaths from terrorism by hosting and sometimes promoting content from ISIS. In the first case against Google, which is Google versus Gonzalez, Chastas has seemed skeptical of the claims. Here's the clip. I'm afraid I'm completely confused by whatever argument you're making at the present time. So I guess I'm thoroughly confused, but let me try to understand what your argument is. And I'm trying to get you to explain to us how something that is standard on YouTube for

virtually anything that you have an interest in suddenly amounts to aiding and abetting because you're in the ISIS category. Those are justices Alito, Jackson, and Thomas, very different people. Thomas has been very, and Alito, been very aggressive on some of this stuff, not in this area, but this lawyer for Gonzalez, who was also the lawyer for the next case, Twitter versus Tomna. I know a lot about this because I did a whole show today. It's on with Kara Swisher with three Supreme Court expert lawyers. And the judges were all in agreement. It was really quite something to see. In the second case, which claims that

Twitter violated anti-terrorism laws, justice is questioned. Twitter's defense, here's an exchange between Twitter's lawyer and Justice Sotomayor comparing the case to one about a bank funding terrorists. Why was the indirect assistance, fungible money, make those defendants liable, but you're not liable for providing a platform that you knew they were using to recruit people and to help arrange other terrorist acts. Again, there is nothing in the legal framework set out there that talks about aiding and abetting or substantially assisting an enterprise. You know, I know a lot about this. Let me start. Sotomayor was on the edge of this. Most of the justices seem to agree. What are we listening to this for?

They did take the cases. There's some very important cases coming up, but it looks like 230 is going to live to fight another day. What do you think, Scott? I'm very interested in this. I wrote a post on my newsletter on Section 230 a year ago, and there's few groups that are more aggressive than the crypto Taliban, and one of them might be First Amendment absolutists. And so whenever you talk about 230, you have to really try and understand or make a decent argument. And one of my mentors, Jeff Bukas, who I think is one of the more thoughtful people in the world of media, he and I were talking about 230 and his view, and it's one I've adopted, is that if a platform is like the bulletin board at a school

or a grocery store and people pin stuff up, it's reasonable to say, well, maybe the grocery store or the school where someone pinned up a flyer shouldn't be liable. Something bad happens as a function of that content. But where things do change, and to me it's a fairly elegant argument, is when the algorithms that are programmed by the people at that platform elevate the content and put it in your feet. And the Google versus Gonzalez case isn't trying to question whether or not these videos inspired someone to go kill a 21 or 22-year-old student in Paris. It's about whether or not they should own any liability because they, in fact, elevated that YouTube content and put it in people's feeds. And I think that's a reasonable argument. Also, I think the media has it wrong here, and it might be

biased on my end, but the media is basically saying that the court is disgusted with this and trying to push it back down. You need four justices to agree that there's a chance they'll overturn or change the law in order to hear it. So, clearly, there's enough justices where they feel this is worth listening to. And I do believe that a decent starting place for a revision of 230 would be, look, you control your algorithms. And if your algorithms elevate content and extend the reach of it, you have made an editorial decision for which you should share this. They're not going to do this, Scott. What they said, essentially, is why isn't Congress fixing this if Congress wants to fix this? This

is not something the justices should do. And that's a fair argument. But there are two similar cases also coming up with oral arguments. Yes, those will be interesting. And again, the other role that the Supreme Court plays is that when the lower courts can't agree on something, they're supposed to be the arbiter and actually weigh in and make a decision. So, I'm actually more hopeful that they will make a decision here and not kick it back to the – kick it back. Who's really failed here? They will not. Is Congress.

Congress is supposed to take these complicated issues. Yes. Slow it down, bring in experts, really think about it and try and use a scalpel to change the law so that it doesn't end up in the very blunt instrument of a court where they have to go yes or no. Because these guys, these aren't technology experts. No, actually, Kagan said that. I mean, we're a court. We really don't know about these things. These are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet. I mean, she called attention to it, and every one of them kept being like, no, it's not us.

We're not going to make this decision several times. And they just don't, you know, and most of the lower courts have been pretty consistent about how 230 decisions are made. It's pretty explicit. I think it's 26 words. It's quite clear to most lower courts. There hasn't been a lot of back and forth about this in lower courts. This podcast today was very interesting.

Not every of this group agreed, but most of them felt that it was the one time the Supreme Court spoke with one voice over something. Yeah, there's bipartisanship around this issue. But I mean, I just think something's got to change here. I think the thing that courts and justices love about 230 is its simplicity. But unfortunately, that simplicity has become somewhat crude and doesn't reflect what is actually going on and the damage that's being done under this blanket protection. I mean, we do have carve-outs.

We have carve-outs from 230 on sex trafficking. So I'm hopeful that even if they kick it back to the courts, someone is good. I think there's would upend. I mean, the justices understood this. I think they wanted to call attention to it. And I think one of them talked about this. It would collapse the entire industry into endless litigation. But there's sunlight between removing it and having carve-outs and deciding that you no longer have the protections of 230 when you make a conscious decision to elevate content. You're no longer a neutral arbiter. You're an editor. Yeah, I think it'll be a question of whether amplification of content is something, whether they can make recommendations. Google argued

that they can. I think they felt that Google won. There's absolutely no way. It's not going Google's way. The other one may, but just because they're bad at content moderation doesn't mean you should remove it. That's the thing. And again, this is Congress's, this is not the Supreme Court's, and I thought they handled it well. That's another case. The Texas case about- Well, they're more interested in that one for sure. Saying that, okay, you cannot remove content is in its own way a pretty egregious violation of the First Amendment. Yes, it is.

And that's the kind of unusual or odd AG from Texas saying you're not allowed to remove content. Yeah, that's Ken Paxton. Anyway, I really was, I have to say, I was thrilled to listen to this debate. They said what they didn't know. They're like, we don't know what we don't know. This seems like it's for Congress. And they didn't know. They're like, we don't know what we don't know. This seems like it's for Congress. And they asked good questions, and they weren't technically illiterate. But they did understand the crux of the issue and how complex it is.

And they also understood the business implications. Each one of them understood it. And for once, Clarence Thomas wasn't an idiot. I just find him to be so not a great thinker. Even he was like, come on. I have a feeling the tech companies did rather well here. I'm sorry to say the lawyer for both Gonzalez and Tamna was not very good. He's a very well-known and well-respected lawyer.

And there was a rumor that the tech companies bought up all the big stuff, but he's a very well-respected thing. He just, he kept sighing at them, which is not a thing the Supreme Court likes to hear. And he kept saying, I don't know, which was not good either. He did not distinguish himself in this case. The lawyers for the tech companies were quite competent and good and clear. Anyway, we'll see.

All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Meta's new revenue play and take a listener question about a suspicious money manager. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer

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Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back with our second big story. Meta's business is hurting and now users will pay. The company could eliminate thousands of more jobs, according to report in the Washington Post. But Mark Zuckerberg announced a not totally original plan for new

revenue. The CEO announced a new paid subscription called MetaVerified. Subscribers will receive a blue badge, fast access on customer support, and increased reach on Facebook and Instagram. They'll also get some sort of digital stickers. Unlike Twitter Blue, users will have to provide government-issued ID when they apply for verification. Once verified, they won't be able to change biographical data in their profile. But like Twitter Blue, meta-verified subscription will cost more than iOS on the desktop, $11.99 a month. On the web, $14.99 on iOS. It's launching first in Australia and New Zealand. I mean, this is like the airline

that's charging for peanuts, but they'll do a good job because they're not going to kick off people they already verified, you know, and call them lords and ladies. They're not going to be obnoxious. They're not going to call us corrupt. I got verified. I don't even remember. I remember a Facebook executive called me and said, would you mind if we did this? And I'm like. I don't even remember. I remember a Facebook executive called me and said, would you mind if we did this? And I'm like, I don't care. I don't use your shitty service anyway. But it's just, it's a way to make money. I can't, to pay for customer service and your own security seems depressing.

But anyway, tell me what you think, Scott. So as shocking as it sounds, in November, when I was doing my predictions for 2023, I had three stock picks for 2023 that I thought would do well. And one of them was meta. And because at some point, they're going to wake up from this fever dream of Mark Zuckerberg and take that $1 billion plus they're literally wasting on the metaverse, and it's going to go straight to the bottom line. In addition, I think this is a really good move. I think this is a really good move. And the difference, if you think about it culturally, meta should never attempt, meta should not have an R&D department. They have never created anything of any original value within their

four walls. Keep in mind the DNA of the founder lives on in a company for a long time. And this is an individual who stole the original idea. And then their most successful product, Instagram, they acquire. They're great acquirers and they're great copy. Snap has effectively been the R&D department for Facebook for a long time. They never do anything original. But that's fine because if you look at the history of business, the company that creates the most shareholder value isn't the innovator. It's the second mouse who gets the cheese. And there's one key difference here between what Twitter tried to do with Twitter Blue

and what I think it's called MetaVerified is doing. And that is they're demanding government-issued ID. Yeah, they're going to do it well. He always does things well. But go ahead. So when you think about this, 2 billion daily active users, 3 billion users, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that in exchange for reach, in exchange for age verification, they could identity verification, meaning you are who you say you are,

and then elevating your reach, that they could get 5% in two or three years. That's 100 million people times 12 bucks, 1.2 billion, 15 billion a year. That would be 90 plus percent margin. I just think this could send the stock screaming. In addition, this addresses what is, or begins to address what is the original sin of the internet. And that is, and you've said this,

the internet was largely funded by advertising. And in order to maintain the types of cash flows that these companies need and the growth they need, that means that it's become largely an attention monster. It's not about adding value. It's about keeping your attention, regardless of whether it depresses you, your kids, makes you angry at your neighbors, convinces you to go to the Capitol steps and start spraying bear spray on a Capitol police officer, whatever it might be, right? So the notion of moving slowly but surely to subscription, I would like to see all of these companies do that. I would agree.

I think about it. I was trying to think about it. One, he's going to do a good job. He's going to do the verified in an actual verification, not an Elon Musk version of it, which is none to say none. Just here, pay $8. Here's your badge. I think they'll

do a good job in that, meaning we won't see a lot of scammery. I do like that they didn't say, we're going to take away everyone we gave it to before, because they came to me because they wanted my name verified. You know what I mean? And they didn't demonize the people who had it before, right? Because again, it was all initiated by them. Increased reach, I think, is valuable to some people. That's great. That's worth something, sure. I'm not thrilled with the fast access to customer support. I think everyone on that service should get good, solid customer support. That said- There's 3 billion people on Meta?

Yes, I agree. They should get a level of customer support that's excellent, period. I'm sorry. I do think it's like the airlines. I get on the airline first at United because I'm a Premier 1K. I get better service. I do. I get quicker answers. They let me change things. It's a very similar relationship. And I pay for it by using it. That's how I pay for it, by using it. Yeah, but what you're saying is not 3 billion people, but the power users who create more value for them should get, they should start segmenting their user base. Yes. There's a lot of things. I've always thought they should do a subscription. Mark always pushed it off when I said it many years ago. I thought they should have a business service, but I think they'll do a better job job I never objected to paying for your blue check I wanted them to do it in a verified way like a real verification not a bullshit way and I I have and they have to have something of value to me nothing of this is a value to me but I can see

why some people would like it and it's you start, like Prime is valuable to me. Disney Plus is valuable to me. And that was my whole argument back then. If you're not giving me value, I'm not giving you money. I'm just not. It struck me, just a bit of a tandem, but in terms of just kind of for me, just distill the value of streaming

and why cable is dying. We've talked about Hulu Plus, and you said, I like live TV. Occasionally I want to see CNN, or I want to see MSNBC, or I want to see a sports game. So the way I access live TV is through Hulu. And I think, what is it, $55 or $85 a month? I mean, it's real money to get live TV piped in.

And it's because slowly but surely, every content provider or cable channel was able to charge more and more fees. And we had no choice because it was one cable line coming into our homes because regulatory capture kind of regulated monopolies. Hulu Live than live TV. For me, it's about equivalent because I do like to watch The Eleventh Hour. I like to watch Fareed Zakaria. Anyways, but the fact that the two are equivalent in kind of the consumer valuation, and one is 12 bucks and one is 50 plus gives you a sense. Alex got it. Gives you a sense for just how out of whack and how disruptible cable television was, that all of these fees, every household at one point, or like 40% of American households at one point was paying $8 a month for ESPN, whether you like sports or not. I've never watched sports. But cable just got so fat and happy.

And if you think about streaming, it's just such an exponentially superior value at $12. A superior, exponentially superior value. It is, yeah. At 12 bucks and all a live TV, you're like, okay. I agree. Six, one half dozen, the other, but one's 10 times the cost. Anyways, that's my big value lesson. The amount of Disney Plus I use is crazy. Netflix and Disney Plus for my kids.

You know, Netflix has Teletubbies and Disney Plus, I'm sorry, Claire's married to it. Some of it's a bit of a protection racket, I do think, is like when Twitter's turning off text-based two-factor authentication for users who don't pay for Twitter Blue. I'm sort of like, are you fucking kidding me? Pay us? But the whole world, the entire marketing world, if you try to distill it down to some basic constructs, one of them is the whole world's going iOS or Android. And that is Android says, okay, the majority of the world can't spend $1,200 on a phone, so we'll give you a phone for free. You can get a phone for free, but we're going to treat you like a digital body bag, and you're the product, and we're going to sell it to advertisers. And then iOS says, all right, we're actually going to focus on the end consumer and

make a more elegant experience, but it's going to cost. Essentially, what's happening with MetaVerified is I think they're going to sequester people who can afford it and give them a better service. The whole world is- I get that. I'm talking about the two-factor. If they go over to two-factor authentication and charge for that, people who want two-factor authentication, it should be a basic cable kind of thing. They should give- Yeah, but that's what Twitter, I mean, if Twitter does this, I think what's going to happen with Twitter, you don't realize how vile and aggressive Twitter is until you spend some time off of it. And then you go back on and you're like shocked again. You keep going back on. I'm not been on there.

You just can't get over it. You're like, oh, fuck, I forgot about how just ugly this can get, how fast. That's true. But if they figure out some sort of verification that sequesters people who are reasonable, so much, again, I just think this comes down to identity. You don't go up and say these things because someone can recognize you and may see you again. Two-factor authentication needs to be free. Sorry. You can't charge for that. You can't.

If people want to use it, it's a good thing. It's fine. Anyway, Zuckerberg's announcement didn't mention Metaverse or VR. Those layoffs are coming. I'm assuming it's there. Correct? I mean. I'm fascinated.

All the attention in the media was on quiet quitting. What's really happening in the marketplace is quiet firing. And it's called back to the office mandates. I just think it's, everyone says, everyone's talking about, oh, people want people back in the office. I'm like, no, they don't. They want to trim their workforces. And this is what's going to happen.

They make a back to the office mandate. They go, they say to HR, all right, we'd like to, we'd like to fire 15,000 people. And like, well, how do we do that? We, everyone is up severance because we've all made so much money to six months. So this is, we're talking about billions of dollars in bad headlines. Like I got an idea. Let's have a back to the office mandate. And you can bet, Kara, that there's some people who are really important who they're making exceptions for. But the rest, they're going to say, oh, you can't come back in the office. So that means you're quitting. No severance, no muss, no fuss, reduce our workforce. It is the most elegant, quiet firing I've seen in years.

You know, it's interesting because there was a thing hurtling around the Internet of a guy who he made six million. If he stays, he gets 10. But, you know, I'm not coming because they're making me come back. And I was like, okay. Good for you, boss. Okay. Good for you. You showed them.

Like, you know, they're paying you a lot of money. It's interesting. The most obnoxious people are the highest paid ones, honestly. Anyway. What, you mean tech billionaires who should post America and build a thin layer of innovation on top of middle class investments via the U.S. government? I was talking the other day to someone who asked me for career models, and all they were doing was bellyaching. And I said, you know what your problem is? You're a fucking bellyacher.

Like, give me a break. Like, you know. I said, can we really look at your value? I got so irritated. And I was like, is your value really that much? Because I think you're replaceable. I think almost everybody is. And they're like, well, you don't put up with shit.

I said, because I'm valuable, and I make a lot of money. I was like, so I can do that. So you want to hear about my one call. I've only ever had one call, mostly because I've always run businesses. But when my business got acquired, I've only ever had one call from HR. It happened 48 hours after the deal closed. I got a call from HR. By the way, this individual called me at like Friday at 4.30 and said, hi, this is so-and-so from HR. We need to speak as soon as possible. And I started calling back. She doesn't return my call till Monday afternoon. I'm like, you know, what do you think my weekend was like? It's like a surgery. We've noticed something on the scan. I'm like, what do you think my weekend was like when I get my first

call ever from HR, from the company that just acquired my company saying we need to speak to you and you don't take the time to call me back over the weekend. Anyways, it was the following. We always have all hands meetings. And I used to force everyone to come in at eight in the morning in New York, which is not easy. That's shitty. No, it was a shitty boss. And I had a t-shirt that said that. Shitty boss. Anyways. You could do nine. So, by the way, when I hired a CEO, that's the first thing he did was he canceled the 8 a.m. meeting. Anyway, we have an all-hands.

I think an all-hands is important. And we would get up and different people would kind of go around the room and talk about what people were working on. We try to be very transparent about the business and just update everyone on everything and highlight good work. And one kid raised his hand and said, oh, I'm new here. I just have a question about the vacation policy. Yeah. And I said, the vacation policy is when you just start. You don't ask about the vacation policy.

And everyone laughed. And I said, just kidding. Talk to Karen. Yeah. You know, and she'll outline it for you. Hair on fire at HR. Oh, you're kidding. You can't say anything to anyone about vacation policy, da, da, da.

And I'm like, next thing you're going to tell me is we have to have pet bereavement leave. But I grew up, and I'm not saying things have gotten better. I grew up in an entirely different workplace. Oh, you and me both, fella. Yeah. I'm not exaggerating. When I was at Morgan Stanley, the only job I've ever had, you were not allowed to, you had to be there before anyone senior to you was there, and you could not leave until anyone senior to you. That was a basic rule where I was. And that's bullshit, but it, I mean, things have gotten a lot better. And what people don't realize is the pendulum's

about to swing back viciously towards management and capital. Here's how you can fight that, though. I'll tell you that. When I was a young reporter in Celeste, I was out of the office a lot and I was doing reporting and things like that. And all these people were in the office. I was like, what are you in the office for? Like, why are you sitting there talking to each other and having lunch and typing on your computers? And there wasn't even the internet to play with then. And my boss said to me, well, you have to come in. I was like, why? said to me, well, you have to come in. I was like, why? I was like, why precisely? And they're like, well, we got to know where you are. It was really interesting. I said, I'm at the movies. I don't know. Maybe I'm at the movies. I said, I'm out reporting,

you numbskull. This is when I was in my 20s. I was even worse then. And I said, if I turn in everything and I'm the best, can you leave me alone? And you have to be really good if you want to get extra perks and bennies from people. You have to really excel at your work. You just do. Or make less money. I think there should be a classification for remote work. It's true. If you want to work nine to five, that's great. You're just not in the right place. I do think, though, I do think it is very hard to scale a culture remotely. I do think you need a center of gravity. And also, I've said this a bunch, if you're young, the office is a feature, not a bug. Yeah, that's right. All right, last thing, finishing up the verified thing. On Twitter,

users don't have to show an ID to be verified. Accounts pushing Russian propaganda are buying blue checks. That's according to the research group Reset. Elon Musk even replied to one of the accounts as it made a bogus claim about death tolls in Ukraine. Oh, Jesus. And last month, Twitter verified at least two members of the Taliban on Twitter removed the check marks after the backlash. I mean, look, just do it well, Twitter. Like, if you want to charge, do it well. I don't know what else to say. It's so too late. They fucked this up so badly. I mean, they're like goofists.

They're like goofists. Mark's gallant. He's just going to steal all their ideas and do it well. Do it with some bit of class and security. And then Elon can, like, kick and scream. But if you do a shitty job, you're not going to get as much. Sorry. You're going to get as much. Sorry. You're going to have unhappy people. Thank you. Agreed.

All right, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hi, guys. My name is Gary. I live in Sarasota, Florida. And here's my question. My brother-in-law is a retired farmer. He and his brothers worked very hard, and they have earned all their success. He claims to have a money manager, probably someone based in a small Indiana city, and claims to earn 8% on his money. Can this be so, or could the manager's name be Bernie? Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Scott, this is you.

and B. Bernie. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Scott, this is you. The answer is no, and you should reach out to the SEC or the National or FINRA, anyone. So I had an experience with this when my mom retired. Really? Yeah, when my mom retired to Las Vegas, you know, she had a little bit of money and she was all excited because this woman, and I can say her name because she's a criminal, Nancy Nash claimed she could get her 14% on her money investing in mining companies. And so she brought us in. My mom said, you're smart, come with me. And she said, okay, how much money do you have to invest? She'd asked and she said, well, I can get you X times 0.14 a year. And I'm like, well, how do you know that? How can you guarantee that? And she said, well, we've done all these mining studies. And she gave me this thick thing. And I'm like, I don't need to look at this. No one can guarantee anybody 14%. And it ended up,

by the way, Nancy Nash was convicted and sent to prison. And because for defrauding seniors, you cannot get 8% guaranteed. You might get 8%, but you are subjecting your capital to risk. And by the way, that risk might be worth it. And so if a financial advisor says to you, one of the things they say is, is your risk complexion? And as you get older, your risk complexion goes down. And that is you don't want to take risk because there's not enough time to earn it back. 8% isn't an unreasonable goal for return, but it's a goal.

No one can guarantee it ever. And also the key, the key, your Kevlar and your brother's Kevlar is diversification. You don't put any, you don't put, you don't go all in on anything. I don't even like to put more than 10 or 20% in any one asset class because the great thing about diversification is you get risk-free return. It's your Kevlar. So in sum to our caller, no. And that person should be reported if they're in any way saying that there's any sort of certainty to getting 8%. And two, you can get 8% over the long term, but it's through diversification and low-cost funds. And individuals, I don't even like investing when there's someone on the other line. I think a financial planner is good in terms of diversification, tax planning. But at the end of the day, low-cost ETFs from Vanguard or someone else are the way to go. But no, no one can get

you 8%, Karen. Yeah. I think Scott said it perfectly. It's just a scam. You can't claim to earn, you know, maybe, maybe, right? You pick the right stock at the right moment in the right time frame. You have to be diversified. You don't want to work your whole life and then have some idiotic, scammy money manager lose it all for you. And, you know, if it's too good to be true, it's always too good to be true. By the way, this is something George Santos did. He was pushing, he was very pushy with people on various investments. There's a great story.

I think it was in the Washington Post about how he did this. And then when they were sort of like, this seems too good to be true. He started yelling at them and you wasted my time. And I took you to a restaurant and et cetera, et cetera. And so I just, I agree with Scott.

Just please be very careful. Be safe. Be safe out there. Scott, would you ever be a money manager? I wouldn't. That would be terrible. No. As a matter of fact, some of the most stressful times of my life, I've raised a lot of money, and everyone says use other people's money.

Yeah. The most stressful times of my life, outside of a few things with my kids, have been losing other people's money. I've raised hundreds of millions of dollars for my companies. Some have worked, some have not. And the most stressful thing in my view is losing other people's money. And I would, I'm not kidding. I'd rather just lose my own money. And one of the nice things about when you get some economic security and you want to start a business, you can fund it yourself. And because I find investor communications, I mean, you get more leverage on other people's money. There's less downside when you lose someone else's money, but it comes at a real toll unless you're a sociopath. I don't think about it. I try to spend almost no

time thinking about money. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

I think me and Poppy Harlow are going to be fake friends. Poppy is the kind of friend where I imagine her living in Delray. And she'd call me and say, Scott, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm just hanging out. And she'd be like, well, I'm going to the airport. Would you like to give me a ride? And I would give her a ride and we'd have a lovely conversation. Anyways, that's my new fake friendship.

We're good, good friends. We're seeing each other this weekend. We'll talk about it. We're going to make a video for you. Really? Yeah. I love Poppy Harlow. Yeah're going to make a video for you. Really? Yeah. I love Poppy Harlow. Yeah, our kids are going to play together. She's got a great husband.

You always have to one-up me, don't you? I'm just telling you. You always have. I texted her this morning. I'm like, anything new? What's going on? We're going to get some croissants and children play this weekend in New York. I forgot that it's Thursday and we're doing predictions.

I have a win and a fail. I totally forgot. The mushroom chocolates are just kicking in. Oh, God, you're in Tulum. That's correct. Okay. Well, go for it. Go for it.

You can do it. I'll do it. Okay, I'm going off. My fail is I'm on Twitter and I see breaking Boulder High School. Yeah. And this is the only nation in the world when you see the term high school oh shooting you immediately go to this horrific image yeah when you see the term high school in australia when you see sydney high school breaking sydney high school you don't you don't go oh someone's gotten a weapon of war, which they can get legally, and has decided to kill children.

And it just, we become so numb to just how ridiculous this is. And nothing can match the horror of people who lose loved ones. But what is incalculable and doesn't get enough attention is that I love the study on countries that looks at the happiest countries in the world, and seven of the 10 happiest countries in the world are in Northern Europe. And everyone immediately goes, oh, but they're socialists, or they sit on a bunch of oil. Happiness is not only a function of what you get, it's absence from fear of what can be taken from you. And in America, we have to live with this thin, sometimes thick layer of context and fear that this can happen. And other nations and other citizens don't have to put up with this shit. So, the question is, okay, maybe we have, you know, cheaper Nespresso pods, maybe we have more billionaires, but is that worth it? And it just struck me. I'm kind of, I want things taken away. I want an absence of fear from knowing I'm going to go bankrupt if someone I love gets lung cancer.

I want an absence of fear that every time I drop off my kids at school, that's something horrific. You have these images. I'm like, what would I do? Who would I call? Like, what would I do, right? And do I talk to my kids about this? Yeah. We have, and schools now in America, they have active fucking shooter drills. My kid's school has. Active shooter drills to create. I just got an email from both my kids' schools about this.

It was right. Do you remember, did you do duck and cover drills in school? No. We used to do duck and, if you see a flash of light, kids, you know, the Soviet nuclear bomb, duck and cover as if that'll save your ass in a nuclear attack. Just duck and cover under your desk. You really had those? Oh, my. You know what?

Duck and cover. They put a song on it. No. I can't believe you didn't have duck and cover drills. I'm older than you. We would actually, the teacher would yell out, duck and cover. And we'd all like dive under our desks. It's lucky we survived

that nuclear blast because we ducked and covered in the fifth grade in Mrs. Gollum's class. Oh, really? We had those emergent, we did the thing of getting out of school fast for fires and stuff. But anyway, which I think is good. So anyways, my fail is the constant layer of fear that everyone in America, especially parents, has to endure. And there's just no, there is no credible, it's a fear that other people in other nations do not have to deal with, and they still have gun rights. All right, what's your win? Anyways, that's my fail. My win is, I'm just an enormous fan of President Jimmy Carter, and I think a lot about masculinity, and I was trying to think of how do you reframe masculinity as service? He was in the Navy, married a really impressive hot woman, was an aggressive, bold entrepreneur, made millions of dollars, took over

a failing peanut farm, served his country, very resolute. And then what do you do with all those assets and all those blessings? You advocate for and you protect others. And I think that's a decent definition of masculinity. He's in a hospice now. He's at home on hospice care. But I was just thinking about how do we, I mean, my win is Jimmy Carter, but how do we reframe or how do we do a better job? I think in school and health, they should have mating dynamics.

I think we need to teach men how to talk to women and make them feel safe. I also think we need to start talking about, in a more productive way, and this would never go anywhere, but among young men, what does it mean to be masculine? And I think of him as somebody who sets a great role model. He did. For young men. Was not a great president, but was, wasn't, was not. No, wasn't. Don Lemon, pay some attention to Jimmy Carter.

Dilemma. Dilemma. We should, you know what, we should give Don some, cuts him some slack here because he's very good looking and we should be nicer to very handsome people. That's true. And I'll talk to my good friend Poppy Poppy, and see how she's feeling. I'll let you know how she is. We're good, good friends.

Yeah, you know, you're not in any way. But if you'd like to meet her, I'd be happy to introduce you. I think she likes me. I think Poppy and I would get along. I mean, I'm sure she likes you as a character in my life. As a character. As like Stewie on The Family Guy? Yeah, exactly.

As a character in the Pantheon. I'd like to say one quick thing. My aunt died this week. I'm sorry to hear that. That's okay. She's been very sick. She's my dad's sister. She had a lot of illness for a long time.

She's very religious. We didn't always see eye to eye on things, but she was such a kind and good. Speaking of Jimmy Carter, who's also very religious, was such a kind and good, speaking of Jimmy Carter, who's also very religious, was such a kind and good person about her religion, about her life, lived a relatively quiet life, followed her husband all over the world, he was in the military, and just a really good person.

And so, anyway. I'm sorry to hear that. Sorry, I teared up, because really nice family. Anyway, okay, that's the show. We'll sorry to hear that. Sorry, I teared up because really nice family. Anyway, okay, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretat engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, we wish your family strength and are sorry for your loss.