Pivot - Microsoft and Discord, Goldman Sachs' junior bankers and a listener mail question on news consumption

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about Microsoft's potential acquisition of the video gaming social platform Discord. They also preview the big tech hearings on disinformation. Meanwhile, Scott thinks Goldman Sachs junior employees should "buck up", even though Kara thinks "work-life-balance" priorities might be shifting in our culture. In listener mail, Kara and Scott talk about how they consume the news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Why are you there now? You never sit still, Scott Galloway. You know, a rolling stone has no something. I forget what it's called. Oh, okay. All right. By the way, I'm going to molest this thing called Earth once we get the all clear. I used to hate to travel. Now I can't wait. Anyway, I have never been, I have never

enjoyed something as much that I'm this unsuccessful at as Los Angeles. Really? Why? Why are you there again? You were just there for Bill Maher and then you left and now you're back. No, I'm supposed to be a consulting producer for some Netflix show, and because I got associated with it, it's now blown up. This is WeWork or what?

No, this is GameStop. Oh, GameStop. Oh, right. You told me about that. Yeah. I'm now toxic. If I get attached to a project, it's doomed to fail. I'm so glad we just signed our Vox deal then. Oh, dear. We just announced it this week. Should I run for the freaking thing? Don't hold your breath.

Don't hold your breath. I got to run for the hills, I think. Literally, every time I come here, by the way, I just absolutely love it. I love it here. I come here. I do three or four meetings with very credible, important people that my agent sets up with, and they all say the same thing. They all look me in the eye after we have just a brief discussion. You go to their house, I guess, which is the ultimate power plant in LA. And they look

me in the eye and they're like, you are a genius. We must work together. And I walk out thinking, that was the best meeting I've ever had. And then what happens? Nothing. Crickets. Crickets. They love to do that. That's why I don't go to LA. I have never made a dollar in L.A. I don't think I've ever made a... My agent, I'm the worst client of my agents.

They love to meet with you and avail themselves to your intelligence and tell you how smart... I have had those meetings, too. Do you remember Contarach where they did that, where they brought a man and said, Vince? You remember? They did the whole... Oh, yeah, that guy made money. Yeah. I've literally...

I've never... I don't think I've ever made a dollar in Los Angeles. I come here a lot and I love it. Actually, you know, have I? I don't know. No, we will. We will make a dollar. Whatever it is we're doing, it doesn't sell in LA.

I don't know. Well, it does. They like being around us because we're smart asses and they just don't do anything with us. I guess. It's fun. I have a great time. I don't think I was paid when I was consulting to Silicon Valley. I don't know.

Maybe I got to premiere. You're right. And they like to invent you their parties. That's fun. I have a great time. I don't think I was paid when I was consulting to Silicon Valley. I don't know. Maybe I got to premiere. You're right. And they like to invent you their parties. That's the thing. They're like, I remember one big agent. He's like, do you like to come to my Oscar party? And they named all these celebrities. And I was like, no.

And then he had nothing else. He had nothing else to give me. He was like, really? And I go, no, thank you. Now I'm like this hybrid dog they show off. They take me to a party and they're like, this is Scott Galloway. He's a professor. They have professors there.

They got some professors, but you know. In any case, in any case, there's a lot going on, Todd. We've got to move on from LA. Although I have to take a little stop over in Cuomo land. Did you see the latest one? His family got special tests. Literally, what is this guy going to do? What is he going to be like? Is he going to be trafficking in PlayStation 5s next? What is going to happen here? Is that a bigger crime in your mind,

says the father, says the mother of two boys? I don't know. What did he get access to or do? What bad thing could he do next? I don't know. For me, it would be bad recycling. For our listeners, can you explain what happened or why it's a big deal? Andrew, Governor Cuomo, who is already under investigation for issues around creepy madness, is, I think that's... Which is a legal term. It's a legal term. That is a legal term. Creepy madness.

He's also being looked at for nursing homes. Otherwise known as men. How he handled elderly people in nursing homes during COVID and misrepresented some numbers about deaths, essentially. So, essentially, creepy gropiness and senior killing, essentially, the two things. And now it turns out that he sent health officials from New York to the homes of his family, including his brother, Chris Cuomo, to test them and then rush the tests using state troopers to get them to, you know, if you remember in the early days when testing was like, where can I get a test? Now, of course, nobody wants a test, but, but it was very hard

to get it. You and I were confused about the whole thing. Like, how do you get the test? What are the good tests? What are the bad tests? And so it seems like a long time ago, but it was a real problem. And he was sort of facilitating the situation. Now, what's really interesting is when I was like, are you kidding me? Like, what is this next thing? Like PlayStation 5? I think I made a joke about it. And it was like, well, every governor does it. And I'm like, you know what? This guy, no whataboutism with this guy. This guy keeps piling on the shitty behavior. His brother, Chris Cuomo, I think he's really in big trouble. I mean, it's just really, he was reporting, I know he had COVID and stuff, but he really, it's just, it's not a good look for anybody. And his whole, like, now his whole bro thing on TV, which was adorable at the time, is quite unadorable.

I don't know, Scott, what do you think? Well, I mean, first off, you and I being confused about something doesn't mean it's unusual. You said we were confused about testing. I don't, to be blunt, I think we're in the pylon stage. I don't think that's that big a deal. I do think a lot of governors probably leverage their position of power to justify. It's not a pylon. It's just more.

I'm sorry. It's not a pylon. It's just more. I mean, why give them an out on these kind of behaviors? Well, I agree. But everybody, everyone is now saying, oh, my gosh, can you believe the governor leveraged his position as the head of the second largest state in the union to get access to early testing? I don't, quite frankly, I would be shocked if the majority of our political leaders have not committed a similar infraction around testing. But anyways, Chris Cuomo will be fine because he's dreamy.

Chris will be fine. DeSantis with vaccines. Yes, I get it. I get it. Chris will be fine. He's dreamy. And he's in the media. And you're right, the whole be fine. He's dreamy. And he's in the media. And you're right, the whole bro thing.

It's the governor. They'll get all the heat. Chris is fine. It'll be interesting to see what the governor does. What's interesting is still the majority, I believe, of New Yorkers and Democrats don't want him to resign. Yeah. So it'll be interesting. But yeah, it's, anyways.

So you think it'll go away for him, all this stuff? No, I think his political career is, the present value on emotion and scandal is so high. The discount rate is so high. And that is, in the moment, it just feels like these individuals will never recover. Yeah. And a lot of them do.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I said that about him. I said, he's not resigning when everyone thought he was like absolutely not he's gonna brazen it out he's a brazen person so he'll brazen it but so i don't think he resigns um but the thing again that and the lesson here is that you don't need friends when you're right and you're popular you need friends when you fuck up and he doesn't have anyone now. It's just clear.

All the stuff's come out. He just hasn't made very many friends. Anyway, we'll see. Brand Cuomo. What would be the brand thing you would say to him? Look, crisis, again, the other lesson here is crisis management. Only three things you need to do in a crisis. You need to acknowledge the problem.

You need to take responsibility. And you need to overcorrect. And he has actually acknowledged the problem around the creeping man, manness. He hasn't, he hasn't acknowledged the extent of it. He hasn't kind of said this was totally inappropriate or, you know, he hasn't, he has, he has acknowledged, he has acknowledged the issue and said that these women should be heard. He's made some of the right moves. I don't think he's really taken responsibility for it. And he definitely has not overcorrected.

Yeah. But those are really the basics of all crisis management. And what's strange is during crises, sometimes it's a huge opportunity. It is. Jeff Bezos turned a crisis into a brand building event. Right. Right. I mean, and what would be described described if you just looked at what had happened

to Jeff and Jeff's actions and you didn't know how the public was going to react, you might think it was over for Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon. Instead, it became a brand building event. Yeah, so what would you do if Team Cuomo, what would you advise them to do right now? What's the move?

I think he... Apologize more. Yeah, I think he has to come out and say, look, this is totally inappropriate. I'm putting a posterior law. I'm holding myself accountable. I just wouldn't put myself in that position. I don't know if Tim Cook would.

That's a very Tim Cook answer for you. I just wouldn't be here. So I don't know. I think it's, I think it's, he's got to get back to focusing on coronavirus, put in place

independent commission, you know, say, let the chips fall where they're going to fall, listen to these women, and then, you know,

try and be a really solid governor for the rest of coronavirus. I think people will be surprised how far, how fast it fades. As long as it doesn't continue. Although, look, Trump had one thing after the next and he continued.

You know what? That's such an interesting point because here's the thing. If you're accused of sexual harassment, you don't want to be accused two or three times. You want to be accused 30 times. And that's what's so sad about our society. Yeah. Is that if it just becomes a torrent of information, everyone just sees it as one thing and starts to become numb to it. If President Trump had just mocked a disabled person and for the rest of his presidency had seemed somewhat dignified, that would have done huge damage.

But because he was doing something awful every 24 hours, it became part of his brand and we became numb to it. Numb. He numbed us. And I think that's the same play. I think this is the playbook he's using here uh i know it's going to be more cascading there's gonna be so much more there's gonna be other things he's found out to have done and all of them will now bubble up from the toxic waste dump that is well everyone everyone now everyone's going to remember things he did and come forward and unfortunately i think our society you know, awards virtue points to people who want to say nice things about him when he's popular

and awards virtue points to people who want to say negative things about him when he's very unpopular. I mean, the momentum around the media is incredible. Yeah, it is interesting. Speaking of momentum, there's yet another big tech misinformation hearings underway in Congress. The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google all published their opening statements. Jack Dorsey focused on internal tools like Birdwatch and Sundar Pichai warned of the dangers of full repeal of 230. Mark Zuckerberg took a really interesting tack and talked about Section 230, but his proposal would make Section 230 conditional on companies maintaining a system to remove illegal content.

I wonder who has money to do that. maintaining a system to remove illegal content. I wonder who has money to do that. He wrote, instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying unlawful content and removing it. Interesting, interesting. We're going to talk more about it after on Monday,

but thoughts going in? You take this one. I have some thoughts, but you're closer to it and you've been doing reporting around this. Same old, same old. I think nothing's going to happen. There should be a lot of, did you do this? And then them saying no.

Or I was going to pay one of the political operatives there up on Capitol Hill money, Bitcoin, if they would actually get one of them to admit they had any culpability in the attack. So I just don't. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing, honey. That's what I say. Wouldn't you love it, though?

Wouldn't you love it if one of them got up there and said, so, okay, so this is what we do. We have determined, we have determined that the most damaging, most insidious content actually creates engagement because our species is really flawed. So, we have these algorithms that figure out not only misinformation, but misinformation that rages, enrages people. And then we promote that content. And then we use all sorts of delay and obfuscation so we can run more ads. Distinct, distinct of the incredible damage it does. And we are now spending more on lobbyists

because all of you sitting up there, despite the fact you're elevated from us, you make all these incredibly bold statements, you're the biggest whores ever on the planet. Oh, all right. That's going to happen. Not going to happen. Well, and not only that, anytime you hear a House Energy Subcommittee, you're like, oh, wait, Energy and Commerce? You're kind of like, I don't know if that's must-see TV.

Yeah. I don't know. I would be shocked if they laid a glove on them. I just don't. I just think it's just not, it's a non-thing. We'll see. I mean, you know, there's all kinds of activity going on in all these areas. It's just they rely on the slowness of Congress and the inaction of Congress, and I think that's really what's going to go on. It's just a kabuki situation. They'll take a little bit of their, they'll take a little insults, a couple of

Democrats will yell at them. What's interesting is a couple people who voted for stop, you know, who tweeted about stop the steal, etc., and availed themselves to the tools of these people and then voted against Donald Trump being impeached are going to be questioning them. That's my favorite part, which is like, oh, God. Did you see that big tech is now the largest spender on lobbying in the history of the planet? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Isn't that crazy? I mean, come on, this whole thing is just, let's see if they lay a glove on him. We'll see if they actually do anything. And I doubt that is the case. I mean, I hate to say that about Congress because they have an ability to do something. You know, but I just think the techies are in charge now. I just do. Like, right, you know, like Elon announcing you can buy Tesla with Bitcoin, of course, he will keep the Bitcoin.

So he's sort of elevating Bitcoin, which he just invested in, and using his cars. Someone said that Tesla is now the world's largest Bitcoin mining factory. I don't know. It's just they can do what they want, it feels like. Yeah. They play by a different set of rules. And it all goes back to a very basic thing, and that is we as a species, we have a brain that's so big we have to be dispelled prematurely from our mothers. And the brain is so big it can ask us these incredible questions, but it's not big enough to answer them. And so into that void has slipped a super being, a god.

Yeah. but it's not big enough to answer them. And so into that void has slipped a super being, a God. And then as a nation becomes wealthier and more educated, its reliance on a super being declines, but that void gets bigger and bigger. And into that void steps the nearest thing that feels mystical, that you can ask it anything, and it sends you back an answer to your query, that it connects you with other people,

and that is technology. And so we provide technology, it's shareholders, it's CEOs, and the industry with a level, with just an entirely different standard, an entirely different standard for what we would have held other industries to. Well, we will see if they do anything about it. We'll see. We'll see. I mean, eventually, everybody gets theirs eventually, maybe not. But in this case, not today. Not today. I would love it to see something significant. But this, again, is all just theater and these hearings, especially because they're on Zoom.

They're not quite as dramatic as they might be in person with all the pictures, you know, all that, you know, the big tables and photographers and this and that. I guess I kind of like it on Zoom because you sort of see what it is. I thought Zephyr Teachout had the best tweet about what they should ask Mark Zuckerberg. And that is, they know how much every brand and every story has what the profitability is and how much revenue it's generated. They know, and they should be asked, how much money have they made off of QAnon?

Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, we really have to get together on this. I'm going to read us a quote from Abraham Lincoln that I heard last night on this amazing documentary that CNN did about Abraham Lincoln's life, which I thought was quite good. And I learned things that I didn't know. This is his last, one of his message to Congress. It was narrated by Sterling Brown, who's an amazing actor. And he read it better, let me just say. But this quote

is exactly what they should think about right now. We can succeed only by concert. It is not, can any of us imagine better, but can we all do better? The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulties and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and we shall save the country. I find you disenthralling. I find you disenthralling. Disenthrall means, Amanda told me this because she's a word person.

It's de-enslave ourselves from this. We need to de- We need to- The S word. Enthrall means enslave. I know that, but it's just, that's what it means. And so, let us just say,

we need, Congress needs to disenthrall, we need to disenthrall ourselves from these tech companies. Thank you. I like it.

Thank you, Abraham. He was talking about a bigger issue, obviously, the Civil War and moving past it and getting together as a country.

But in this case- People don't realize, we spend $700 billion on the military, about half of, you could argue, it's really half a trillion because that includes things like veteran affairs. But we still spend more than the other 10

largest spenders combined. And six of those 10 are our allies. So it's just incredible how much money we spend. And I think the way to get Republicans thinking about this is to say, okay, think about all that money. The greatest threat to our military isn't some super weapon. The greatest threat to our military is Russia's continued ability to divide us internally and use these platforms and a general flaw in, I think, our society,

where it's become so divided. Because as we become so internally divided and have to focus so much on our internal problems, we ignore and turn away from- That is a good thing you made there, from Abraham Lincoln to military budget to tech people. I like it. I'm disenthralling us. You're very, you're very, LA makes, even though it's superficial,

makes you very deep. All right, we had you to move- No, it's because MedMen delivers. But anyways, let me finish my deep thought. All right, because we want a big story. But basically the biggest threat to our military is misinformation. Misinformation.

Catalyzed and spread by social media platforms in the U.S. because we don't pay any attention. We don't have the bandwidth. We're so busy figuring out how, you know, who's right, Ted Cruz or Elizabeth Warren, that we don't focus on what Russia is doing to create a buffer, a new buffer in Eastern Europe with Ukraine. We don't have enough bandwidth to talk about human rights violations. You are correct, sir. That is a very deep and important point from Los Angeles hotel room where you just had room service. Anyway. That's right.

Here's the big story. Microsoft, speaking of light things, Microsoft is in talks to acquire Discord, a social media app for video gamers. It's a pretty cool social media app. It's been used for a lot during the pandemic. The deal, which is not official, could reportedly amount to over $10 billion. Discord has 100 million active

monthly users and has, of course, gained popularity in the pandemic. They're using it for all kinds of other things besides gaming books and talking and this and that. It's been a huge year for video gaming companies, and Microsoft has bolstered much of its gaming business with acquisitions. In September, it bought ZeniMax Media, the parent company of several large gaming studios, for $7.5 billion. Now, we're not gaming experts, but this is interesting.

Microsoft seems very canny these days. What do you think? Because of Roblox, there's all kinds of things going on in the gaming industry. But any thoughts, Scott? on in the gaming industry. But any thoughts, Scott? So, the best acquisition of 2020, and I don't like the company, but it was the best acquisition of 2020, was when Uber acquired Postmates and diversified away. They turned the pandemic from a bug into a feature, and they diversified. And basically, the platform that coordinates vehicles to transport something from point A to point B.

And it doesn't matter if the person in the back is going to dinner or if the person in the back is dinner, but they've diversified. I thought that was a brilliant acquisition. The best acquisition of 2021 is this one. And when you read more about it, it just, I mean, this calls on so many really key business trends that Satya Nadella clearly gets, and that is the most accretive business action in history is, and I know you're sick of me saying this, moving from transactional episodic revenues to recurring consistent revenues. I'm never sick of the rundle, Scott. Anyways, people don't talk about it, but the most powerful rundle in the world is a B2B rundle, specifically Microsoft Office into the enterprise. Yes, indeed. You got to imagine 99.7% of all corporations with more than 10 people pay recurring revenue fee

for Office to Microsoft and for the enterprise. And it's consistent. If you renew, that means you're in business, or if you don't renew, it means you went out of business. So it's the most powerful B2B bundle in the world. Now let's talk about the most powerful B2C ones. There's Amazon Prime. There's Netflix. Apple One now has 23% of their revenues from a recurring revenue stream. And you're going to have one company that has a top 10 rundle. One is B2B and one is B2C because they will tack this onto their Microsoft or their Xbox games plan.

Also, Discord has a Nitro plan, $9.99 a month, $100 a year, and they will end up with one of the 10 biggest consumer rundles. So Microsoft will be the only firm in the world that has two of the top 10 rundles, one B2B and one B2C. And I think this will probably, probably make Microsoft, again, the most valuable company in the world.

Yeah, what's interesting is this is so social. Microsoft never was very – they made investments in Facebook and others. But this has become such a – you know, I have kids who play video games, and it's so social. It's such a social – like, my kid was playing Animal Crossing last night. There's so much sociability to it. And Discord, I think, has done a nice job here in terms of, and also beyond just games. They've done other things. It's creating a community.

It's where people want to talk about Black Lives Matter. Yeah, exactly. And so it's really interesting that it's sort of a much healthier social network in a lot of ways. Because it's got a goal, I guess, in this case, gaming or whatever they happen to put into it. But I think it's perfect for Microsoft as an add-on to the games that are, it's because it owns Minecraft, it owns a lot of things. And so it has a, it sort of dominates this area. And I can't, you know, I guess, you know, Sony, PlayStation and everything else,

but that still doesn't have the same cohesiveness here. And I like the cohesiveness of what they're doing. Well, it also taps into the other, the kind of fourth big tectonic shift in our economy, and that is dispersion. Because it's an underlying platform for game developers to develop games and then go direct to the consumer. And that's the same as, you know, kind of the same platform or strategy as Roblox. And that is, in my view, that is what, you know, Bitcoin's all about or crypto. It's basically saying, how do we take out the traditional channels of distribution that are creating friction and unnecessary expense?

And also, nothing works in terms of consumer preference and product development like the consumer. So rather than trying to figure out what an agent who tells me I'm a genius or a producer and gets in my way of millions of people being able to appreciate the dog. Instead, you have now these new platforms. You're there to kill your agents, but go ahead, yeah. They're really nice people. Yeah. I can't figure out why I'm, anyways. Anyways, they make no money off of me. I don't get it.

Anyway, so, but these platforms, right? What's so powerful about Roblox is they say, okay, we'll create a platform for creators, similar to what TikTok's doing. I mean, it's all around the same thing. Whether it's telehealth, it's all skipping traditional channels of distribution or supply chain to add more value to the end consumer or award more of the spoils to the original creator. So should Microsoft buy Roblox? They bought GitHub. It's moving into these really interesting...

I feel like I'm not smart enough to understand what he's doing here. It doesn't feel random, like some acquisitions do. Yeah. So he's got GitHub over here. He's got, you know, they've got all kinds of different things

that they're working on. Yeah, but if they have the largest gaming rundle, and they not only have the traditional studio model where they produce games and put up $100, $200 million behind a huge game, and then they also have this community-driven game platform, that's really powerful, really powerful. I think you're right.

Microsoft is just kind of, they've done such a great job of keeping a low profile. You know, they're really incredibly impressive the way they've handled themselves. I feel like I have to go see him and have him explain to me what he's doing. You know what I mean? Because he's such a like calm guy. It would be interesting to see, but they are definitely doubling. He's very good at doubling down in the areas they're good at. You know, the one, the one miss I think that they had was with Skype. They really didn't leverage that in the way that they might have.

They've been pushing heavy into Teams and other things around the pandemic and using it. And I've seen it being used more for sure, and I know it's been growing. But it's certainly an area that they and they probably should have gotten Slack I would guess rather than Salesforce but they've definitely moved into areas and that Skype is the only area I see where they didn't really do as much as they

should have in things that are naturally theirs. I don't think they could have gone after Slack because they have a great product with Teams. They did at one point. Yeah and instead they developed Teams. And Teams actually has a higher NPS than Slack. And not only that, if Slack didn't work, I think they would be accused of a acqua kill. And I think that would raise a lot of alarms.

Yeah, true. Fair. We think Satya Nadella is brilliant right now. All right, Scott, let's go to a quick break. We'll come back and we'll talk about the trouble for young bankers at Goldman Sachs. And a listener mail question. Fox Creative. and a listener mail question. with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better.

and protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other.

Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy? Marketing. And when you're starting your small business, while you're so focused on the day-to-day,

the personnel, and the finances, marketing is the last thing on your mind. But if customers don't know about you, the rest of it doesn't really matter. Luckily, there's Constant Contact. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform can help your businesses stand out, stay top of mind, and see big results. Sell more, raise more, and build more genuine relationships with your audience through a suite of digital marketing tools made to fast track your growth. With Constant Contact, you can get email marketing that helps you create and send the perfect email to every customer, and create, promote, and manage your events with ease, all in one place. Get all the automation,

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But, you know, you've been in this position. I know a lot of friends who certainly have back in the day, and it's not a surprise that it's continuing. Maybe it is a surprise. Scott, this is your area. I find this fascinating. So my first two years out of UCLA, I was a Morgan Stanley in the analyst program. And they prided themselves into a certain extent. We prided ourselves on, we just worked all the time.

We worked around the clock and it was definitely abusive. But here's the thing. And also mother of my children worked at Goldman for five years out of business school. So I think I'm very familiar with the investment bank culture when they're talking about whatever. First off, I think the survey was 13 people. So this isn't exactly academic research and it was all out of the San Francisco office, which I think is kind of interesting.

Look, the wonderful thing about capitalism and the reason why it's the best economic system of its kind is it's inextricably linked to the notion of freedom. And that is, you have the choice to charge what you think you can charge for a product. You have the choice to figure out or the freedom to figure out how much you should produce. It's nothing centrally planned. You have a decision as someone who can offer your human capital for rent to who to go to work for, to how much to ask for, to demand a raise and leave if you don't get it. There's a lot of freedom around these decisions. And when the free markets result in child labor

or the spread of misinformation or teens becoming radicalized on a video platform, the government steps in to tweak, manicure, and regulate these externalities. And so, when you have software that circumvents minimum wage loss, the government should step in as it did in the United Kingdom and rightfully say these are employees, not contractors. When our elections are perverted and the greatest democracy in the world is put at risk because of shareholder value, the government should step in and hopefully is. But here's the thing, there's two sides to this trade. Right.

And these individuals that also came out at the age of 23 and 24 are making about $130,000 a year. And so these individuals, quite frankly, have more options. If you're a 23-year-old who got a job at Goldman Sachs, you have more options than perhaps any individual in the world. And here's the thing, if you don't like the intense work atmosphere, and granted, if it's actually physically abusive, fine, then someone should step in. And I know the guys at Goldman, they will, if that's in fact the case. But there's two sides to this trade. And you've decided that you don't want quality of life or balance. You've decided that by the time you're 25 or 26,

you want to leave Goldman and go make a half a million dollars working at a private equity fund. And guess what? Guess what? That means having no life. In sum, my message to these 13 people would buck the fuck up, bitches. Don't climb your river for God's sakes. I'm going to take the other side of this trade. Go ahead. Okay, things have changed in the workplace. And I think about doctors, my brother's a doctor and stuff. There was the old culture is you're going to stay up all night

and it's going to hurt. It was abusive. And I don't know if you get to be better as a doctor that way. I think you get tired and possibly make mistakes. This was always my thing. I'm like, why are they exhausting you precisely? And I don't think it's good for a doctor to be exhausted in general. I get the idea of intensity.

Absolutely. And I was thinking the other day that I, you know, I worked at the Washington Post and I did it myself. I made the trade, which was I stayed there 10 to 10, 11 o'clock every night. I just did. I sat there and typed and wrote as many stories as possible. And I wouldn't, it wasn't abusive. It wasn't always nice for sure. But I wouldn't say it was abusive, but I just loved it. And I knew that it would also hurt my friends and relationships. And it did to an extent, I think probably. But I sort of was making the trade. At the same time,

probably. But I sort of was making the trade. At the same time, I think there's a much different awareness in the culture about how the workplace should be. And that is something that I think it's very hard for people who are older, who went through sort of the grind and the mill, to understand that others don't think this, is this how the workplace should be? Is this how we get successful by grinding down our young people? And so I do think it should be, you know, on one side, it can get a little too twee, you know, like, how are you feeling?

I mean, even now, like some stuff, it's like work-life balance is mentioned all the time. No such thing. No such thing. I get that, but I'm saying there are pressures on the other end that it might become more important and whether young people want that is really interesting. It's definitely a push-pull and much more so than it used to be.

And there was never a question. It's like, start typing that story, Kara. That's that. There was never a question by me at the same time. I literally, and every now and then, you'd have a delightful thing happen to you where I remember coming out of the Washington Post at like 11 o'clock and the things were spinning,

the printer, the printing presses were spinning so you could feel the whole building hum, which was kind of cool, you know, because they were actually making the paper. And I was walking out the exit, the exit that they have at night, and Ben Bradley and Lauren Bacall were walking in, because he was giving her a tour. He was dressed in a tuxedo. She was dressed to the nines. And he was like, hey, kid, did you finish the story? And I'm like, yes, sir. And then it was Lauren

Bacall. And it was like, wow, this is amazing that I stayed up all night and did this work. I find it more amazing you're that old, but anyways. I know I'm that old. Nonetheless, I think there is a change in the workplace that if managers don't pay attention to, could get in big trouble. So if it's just an abusive culture, right? So when I was at Morgan Stanley, you weren't allowed to leave, literally.

You weren't kind of as unwritten law. You couldn't leave before everyone senior to you, which was everyone had already left. And it felt like once a week, so it was probably once every other week. I wasn't as, quite frankly, I just wasn't as good as the other analysts. I wasn't as well-educated. I got a 2.27 GPA coming out of UCLA. And I decided that once every week, every other week, I'd go to work on a Tuesday morning and I would stay till Wednesday night. I wouldn't go home. I'd work through the night to show that I was strong and try and impress people.

And that type of behavior was rewarded. And there was an abused children's syndrome. And that is, I have a little bit of that. I've created some of that culture in my companies because I was abused. And the reality is that's not healthy. And you're right. And there's more recognition

that just grinding people for the sake of grinding people and for bragging rights and some sort of corporate macho bullshit, that's unhealthy. But the reason why i think that these guys right now are these men and women are working this hard right now is that between spacs and m a it is time to print money if you're an investment bank and the rains don't last forever so i think a lot of this i don't think this is abuse child syndrome i think it's they don't have enough

resources in the general viewpoint as well if we have an opportunity to do a deal, we are going to do a deal. And if it means you work 90 hours instead of 70 hours. But again, there are two sides to this trade. If they want to go to work for Deloitte or Ernst & Young and make half as much, they can have much more balance in their life. And my message to young people is this work-life balance stuff is a myth. There's only trade-offs. And if you expect to be making a half a million dollars a year by the time you're 30, which almost every analyst at Goldman does, get used to it. Get used to it. Tough love from Scott Galloway. Tough love. Easy for me to say.

Room service. I still think there's a lot more coming on this. I don't know. I just feel there's a lot of pressures anyway, and probably lawsuits, et cetera. All right. Listener mail, we're going to listen to a question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm listener mail, we're going to listen to a question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hi, Cara and Scott.

My name's Liam. I'm calling you from outside Boston. My question revolves around news consumption. I'm at the early stages of my career. I'm 27, and I'm curious how each of you consume the news today and how that's evolved over the course of your careers. I've really tried to make the switch from algorithmically served news in social media or news aggregators to going directly to the publishers I trust and choosing what articles I want to read.

I'm also curious what percentage of the news you consume is directly related to your day-to-day work. For me, I only find it's 15 to 20 percent, and the rest is about becoming a more well-rounded person. Thanks so much, and keep up the great work. That's an interesting question. That's a great question. Scott? You go first. I want to think about it. Well, I actually read the major news, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. How do you read them? You read them online? Online, on an app. And I read them a lot.

Like, a lot, a lot all day. I also, I have to say, Twitter has become my news go-to news place. And I just, it just is. It works, it has signal-to-noise ratio is excellent. And I find a lot of stuff I wouldn't have noticed. I wouldn't go, say, to the Atlantic that much. I just wouldn't. I just don't.

But I do see a lot of Atlantic stuff there. I see things like, you know, a lot of these sub stacks, some of them that I like, like Casey Newton is one that I really like. And some others. So I do find them and I wouldn't have necessarily gone to Casey's thing. I see him tweet it and then I'm interested.

So I would say Twitter would be the place where I get on. I consume so much news. It's crazy. And I do it for work, I guess, and also because I love it. And I have a thing with Amanda where she's like, oh, you're going to read your news now. It calms me down at night to just consume Twitter information. Some of it's just jokes and memes and stuff like that. What about you? It disenthralls you? Yes, it disenthralls me.

No, it enthralls me. No, it enthralls me. Yeah, so Hudson or whatever it was called, DHS, the most valuable retail per square foot in the world used to be those stores in the airport where you'd pick up your newspapers and your magazines and your candy and your water before you got on a plane. And they're really hurting because people are no longer buying print before they get on a plane. And they're really hurting because people are no longer buying print before

they get on a plane. I used to love newspapers. And now I find I have this emotional attachment and I pick up newspapers, but I never actually read them. And so, yeah, Twitter, absolutely. I like those email things you get in the morning saying five things you need to know about the market. But what's interesting is it's gone from broadcast like i think i just never watch television anymore unless it's the queen's gambit and i used to get it you know used to get news from dan rather whatever it was or peter jennings that that's just gone and then it's no longer print it's online and it went to algorithmically driven but you said something that fascinated me you talked to someone a survivalist or some and they asked the, what is the one thing you would take into the jungle or a remote area?

You know, kind of naked and afraid kind of question. And I thought it was brilliant what she said, another person. And I think about it now, the majority of the really good information I get is from other people. And that is, there's a group of people I work with who I just think are incredibly smart and have their pulse, Maria Petrova, Dan Yatia, Catherine Dillon, Jason Stavers, Emil Saverio, and they will forward me an article. And when they forward me an article, I read it. So, I have my own kind of personal editorial staff. When we pass around notes for Pivot the night before, I learn from that because I think it's interesting what you and Rebecca find

interesting, right? And so, I would say it's interesting. I've kind of moved to algorithm and then past algorithmic to curation. And also, if something's getting a ton of heat on Twitter, I click on it and I read it. Right, right, right. Rebecca, very briefly, what do you, how do you consume the news? I trust people. Like, I find journalists that I like their work consistently and i follow them and when they elevate something or they have an opinion i think similar to what scott is saying is like twitter yeah okay cara and i have decided that you clearly have too much time on your hands and i need you to work 95 hours a week this is this is the point where you say, fine, pay me $128,000 a year, bitch.

Just let me put words in your mouth. All right. It's tough when you love your job. It's hard to say. Like, I hear what Kara was saying. It's like, that was always hard for me. It's like, when you love what you do, it's hard to find that trade-off. But yeah, pay me $128,000 a year.

Good luck on that one. Okay. All right. Here's the deal. From the Vox Media Network. From the Vox Media Network. From the Vox Media Network. I have to say, getting back to both of them, I work all the time and I like it. Yeah, I agree.

I don't dislike it. And I make the choice and I work harder than most people and mostly everybody, actually, and make more stuff and I like it and I make the choices for myself. So, it's interesting. But not everybody does. Not everybody's certain. That's the key point in there. And that is, I don't know, there are some people who have such genius that they can work 40 or 50 hours a week while they're young and get to a certain level of economic success and relevance in their industry.

Assume you are not that person. Because I don't know, I know some really talented people. I don't know anybody who's achieved a level of success and relevance in economic security that a lot of the people I know want to achieve that hasn't kind of given up a solid two decades to pretty much nothing but work. Yeah, not nothing, not nothing.

Well, I mean, when you really look back on it, when you look at hours yes it's it's it's a lot and by the way there's nothing wrong with deciding that's not for you to moving to a lower if you want to look at the bottom line is if you want to live in New York and or raise a family in DC you got to make a half a million to a million bucks and the only people that can make that are people who are outstanding what they do and I've never met anyone that's outstanding what they do that doesn't pretty much work all the time for a good two decades. Yeah, that's an interesting question.

When I had a stroke, actually, someone said, now you can work less. And I'm like, I'm going to work more. I love it. That old saying, like, on your deathbed, you're not going to remember work. I'm like, I liked my work. I loved it. And I loved, of course, I have a very big family and a lot of kids, and I love that too. But it was interesting, that old sort of trope. I love what I do. I love it. And I think Scott does, and I think you do. But I've gotten there, though.

That's not what, quite frankly, that's a better story, and I believe it. Mine's not as romantic or as admirable, and that is, we didn't have any money growing up. And it was me and my mom and i noticed our lives weren't not you know could have been a lot nicer if we'd had a little bit more money i became very economically driven when my mom got sick it really threw my face that we didn't have money and it was just i've been just and i'm not proud to say this i have been i i just decided at an early age i am going to be economically secure. This is really important to me.

It's a big driver for a lot of people. And those have been the embers that have burned. If I, I worry about my kids because my kids don't, my kids pretty much have everything. And if I were my kids, the only two things I'd know I have in my life as an adult male would be a Range Rover and a cocaine habit. So I don't know. Let me give you, let me reassure you. I grew up really rich and I work and my brothers work harder than anybody else. There are people like you and you're exceptional and something, there's something in, Lucky did something there. It wasn't Lucky. Lucky lies around and like

eats cookies and looks fabulous. Yeah. She does have great fashion. I'm just saying I wouldn't, I wouldn't have that drive. I wasn't trying to find something I loved. I was like, that's it. Yeah. I am never going to be economically vulnerable again. I'm just not. I'm just here to say all rich kids don't end up like late. I agree.

But what I'm saying is it's really admirable. I think it's really impressive. I just wouldn't have been like, I wouldn't have been you. My mom was always like, why are you all working so much? I was like, I don't know. Anyway, this is a fascinating discussion. Come to Barney's for lunch with me. She did. That's exactly right. Why do you do it?

Come to lunch at Barney's with me. Same thing as my brother's. We all work really hard and we didn't have to. Kara, let's go buy you a dress. That's exactly. Make sure it's yellow. I hate yellow. I had one discussion with my mother. I'm going to repeat this. She goes, I got you a yellow dress. And I said, I hate dresses and I hate yellow. And she said, no, you don't. That is what she said to me. The buildup was better than that actual story, just so you know.

All right, Scott. I'm going to disenthrall you of the yellow dress story being nice. Abraham Lincoln is brilliant. Everybody watch CNN. Yeah, Abraham Lincoln is brilliant. I agree. You got me there. CNN divided we fall or divided we would ever stand.

It was so good. I was shocked that it was so good. And Sterling is amazing. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out?

Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO, Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Okay, Scott, prediction time. It's all your, the floor is yours. Microsoft will be the most valuable company in the world again. Okay, I like it. This is the only company in the world that's going to have a top 10 B2C and B2B rundle.

That's where the world is heading. And also dispersion. They'll have both. They'll have the benefits of the huge studio, game production, industrial complex uh which still has value they'll still put out these huge you know iconic games and but they're also they've got a platform now for community they missed the whole social wave this might be the way to kind of get back in but more elegantly and tap into dispersion where you take developers and give them direct access to the end audience i just just think, the more you read this thing, you're just like,

you know how occasionally you put on something and this never happens to me? You're like, wow, this just feels right and I look good in it. I just keep reading about this. I'm like, God, this is just smart. This is smart. Anyways, Microsoft, most valuable company in the world. I think we should. That's perfect.

That's perfect. That's a great prediction. Yeah, I would agree with you. They already had passed that and they go back and forth with Amazon and I think we should. That's perfect. That's perfect. That's a great prediction. Yeah, I would agree with you. They already had passed that and they go back and forth with Amazon and I think Apple. There's a couple of them up in the top there. But yes, I agree. I've always been surprised they've been the most valuable and there they are. But he's just very quietly done a very good job, the CEO, Tatiana Della. Not flashy, not fancy, but making a lot of good decisions. And let me just say, there were a lot of bad acquisitions Microsoft made for many years, if you recall all of them. And so this is really interesting. And they haven't attracted the attention of regulators, speaking of which, which we'll talk about on Monday,

what happened in Congress today, which is happening right now, which is probably zip. But anyway, we'll talk about it anyway. Okay, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for the podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Scott, read us out.

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. It was engineered by Ernie Indretot. If you like what you heard, please download, subscribe, recommend it to a friend. Also, thanks to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business, where we will disenthrall your asses. Stop making fun of my hero, Abraham Lincoln.

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