Pivot - More Bad News at Spotify, Amazon’s Ad Business Revealed, and Guest Wajahat Ali

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

Meta threatens to shut down Facebook in Europe! Kara and Scott discuss the latest twist at Spotify, and the surprising scale of Amazon's advertising business. Also, no one is watching the Olympics. Friend of Pivot Wajahat Ali joins to talk about his book, “Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American." You can find Wajahat on Twitter at @WajahatAli. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, at 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 the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher.

And Cara, I've decided to give up edibles. I was watching a program last night on mute for a full hour before, and I started crying because I thought I'd gone deaf. So... Oh, my God. How many edibles did you take? That's good. That's good edibles humor.

Anyway, we're going to be in Miami next week. We're not going to try to sell it too much because someone got mad because we're selling. We're selling Miami. So what? Big deal. Big deal. Come to our conference, bitches. much because someone got mad because we're selling, we're sending Miami. So what? Big deal. Come to our conference, bitches. How's that? Is that subtle?

Yeah, that's right. That's good. That's good. It's next week. We're very excited. It's going to be good. It's going to be fun. We're going to have a good time.

A little, a little, a little, a little Preet, a little Preet on the beach, as they say. Preet. All kinds of stuff. So it's going to be fun.

Please buy tickets. Yeah. It's going to be, it's a great program. It's really just a great program. Yeah. And it's full of like new stuff and more to be added soon

in NFTs and crypto and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. People think we're not whores. We are, but we're relatively expensive whores, which is a little bit more forgivable.

And we're good. We're good at our job. And between your 17 kids and hair products, you got to bring in the Benjamins. You got to bring it. That's a lot of hair we got to take care of. It's true.

My hair looks good, doesn't it? Anyway, today we'll talk about the big. You look nice today. It does look good. I got a really nice haircut. I'm getting fit. You look nice today. I'm working out a lot.

You'll see. Nice. Today we'll talk about a big reveal at Amazon, Peloton's new suitors and the late, guess what? They have suitors. I wonder who talked about that. And the latest trouble at Spotify. We'll speak with author Wajahat Ali about humor, the war on terror, and growing up Muslim in a post-9-11 era.

But first, Meta is threatening to shut down Facebook in Europe over data regulations. The regulations prevent the company from transferring Europeans' data to American servers. In a statement, Meta said that restrictions, quote, would material and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and result of operations. So what do you think they're trying to ban Europe? Well, I'll be curious. I think there's less, I think the likelihood that Russia invades Ukraine is exponentially greater than Facebook actually leaving Europe. I think if Facebook were to announce they're leaving Europe in the midst of their negative momentum around revenue growth and user growth, I think their stock would be off 10 or 20%.

So I would say, I would definitely urge all EU regulators that probably the best political messaging you could do right now is to basically say to Facebook, we call your bluff. We just don't buy that you're going to leave your, I believe, your second largest market in the world. What are your thoughts, Karen? Yeah. Yeah. Buy some servers. I think, you know, this is an issue all throughout the world, China, wherever, this whole server issue, where they're located. In this case, you know, I think compared to, say, China, they're not going to do something with it, like something scary. So they don't have any of that to hide behind.

But, you know, this is their laws. Guess what, Facebook? Guess what? Laws in other countries. Other countries have laws, unlike this country. And they're going to have to deal with it. And I get that. It will be a material effect. But this is the way they want to conduct their privacy issues.

Facebook has long played weird, weird, has long, you know, gotten a lot of rope around privacy. And they haven't shown themselves to be our best guardian of privacy. And therefore, this is what happens. I guess, you know, chickens. They're coming home. They've roosted. Think of the arrogance of this statement. Right?

Unless an entire continent changes its laws, we're leaving. That might be true, but who threatens or says that? It kind of implicit in that notion is we as big tech, we as innovators, you should think twice around a continent's laws or we'll leave. You know what? Take your fucking ball and go home. Don't let the door hit your information thievery on the way out. Au revoir. Au revoir.

Adios. Cheerio. Pip pip. Yeah. We're not going to play this game. Nonetheless, we'll see what happens. They can threaten all they want. But actually, and by the way,

I think it'll just highlight the need for users' data protection everywhere. Yeah. That's right i say i like them playing hard hard knocks with them so well i don't think everyone in germany is crazy if they can't use facebook they'll use tiktok whatever in other facebook news after meta's dramatic market value drop which still remains by the way it's still down there i thought it would rebound but it didn't mark zuckerberg is encouraging employees to, quote, pivot to video again. In a company-wide meeting, he told staff that the company faces an unprecedented level of competition from TikTok. As usual, he's right this time. Zuckerberg also said Facebook might offer its employees long weekends, a sign that companies worried about employee retention. You know, a lot of people are going to this four-day workweek thing. But, you know, a lot of people are going to this four-day workweek thing.

So it's interesting. It keeps cycling. They keep trying to do different things, live video, TikTok shorts. They can't be creative if they're not creative. I don't know what they're going to do. So what do you think about this? The stock has remained very low. I was just looking at it a second ago. Facebook has sort of been kicked out of the cool girls table in the cafeteria.

They now have less than, I don't know, 22% of the market cap of or 24% of the market cap of Apple. They're half of what Google, less than, you know, probably a third of what Amazon is. So they're no longer sort of big tech. They're sort of upper middle class big tech, if you will. And a lot of it is around, really comes down to a couple of things. One, they don't control their distribution. So Apple has proven that controlling the distribution can take another big tech player down 27%, which is what has happened since Apple has done the kind of opt-out tracking policy or implemented that policy. In addition, if you look at Amazon's earnings, which were just staggering, and the thing that really stood out to me about Amazon's earnings is Amazon Media Group, which is now bigger than YouTube and is doing more revenue than Twitter, Snap, and Pinterest combined.

And also, it's a bit of a head fake to call it Amazon Media Group, and I'll circle back to the disarticulation of Google and Amazon from Facebook as well. So Apple's disarticulated because it controls the distribution, and Google and Amazon have disarticulated and announced fantastic earnings because they're in a business called Search, which is about as bottom of the funnel as you can get. The funnel, a marketing term, top is awareness, middle is intent, bottom is actual purchase. There's no bottom of the funnel like Search. And if you look at Amazon Media Group, really what it is is Amazon's the second largest search company. It should be called Amazon Search. And that is if you type in diapers, you can then go to

Kimberly Clark and say, would you like Huggies to come up when someone is clearly shopping for diapers? Search is just an incredible business that keeps on giving, whereas Facebook has been booted further up the funnel because of Apple. So you are seeing a disarticulation here of three of the four. If I were going to write the four again, it might be called the three because Facebook is not Amazon, Apple, or Google at this point. They are losing a lot of ground. Yeah, they are. And it's interesting that Apple has turned out to be the protector of privacy. It shouldn't be. By the way, we need accountability. It should be the government. But it is Apple here doing this. And I think people are deciding, before it was sort of tech just goes up, and they're deciding between kind of like Snapchat's up a lot. People are being much more picky about what they like.

And obviously, you saw Snapchat and Amazon going up rather significantly. It is really interesting time for Facebook, because I was just looking at the stock price while you were chit-chatting here. It's up a little bit today, maybe under 5%, but over five days, it's down really 28%. 28% over five days. Over one month, it's down 32%. Over six months, 37%. Year-to-date, 33%. One year, 15% because it had a little bit of a drop,

five year, of course, it's up, up, up, 67%. But still, it's a significant drop and it's not recovering, which is interesting given, I think people are starting to see the threats like Apple and Amazon, TikTok, of course, they're going to keep blaming TikTok, but it's a much broader problem, including people don't like using it. You know what I mean? It's a much broader problem. And they're hoping that you don't see that it's a much broader problem, which is, I think, that's their goal in some way. Anyway, it's interesting.

It's not good. Not good. We'll see if they get back. We'll see if they can create their own TikTok. I doubt it. They can also create the metaverse. And speaking of missing audience, the Olympics are on, but no one is watching. NBC Sports says the opening ceremony drew 16 million viewers total, which is down 43% from last winter games in 2018.

This mirrors last summer's Olympics, where views were down 36%. What do you think? I haven't watched one bit of it. And Amanda Katz, who loves the Olympics, is not watching it. It's just really wild because I immediately want to go to a more simple narrative and think, well, sports, people have finally figured out that sports, that the ratio between the amount of time you spend sweating versus watching other people sweat is a forward-looking indicator of your success, and people are deciding to get off the couch. But that's not true. The NFL is stronger

than ever. Premier League viewership is stronger than ever. I bet the World Cup will set new records. The Super Bowl ads are sold out at $7 million per 30 seconds. There's something about the Olympics that has jumped the shark. I don't know if it's their distribution is harder to find. I don't know if it's the politicization of it. I don't know if people just aren't as excited about curling and they become more tribal and have easier access to. I mean, the digital innovation around places like the NBA and the MLB and to a lesser extent, the NFL has been really, really strong. And I wonder if it's because they're not intermittent, they're not every four years that they're able to maintain that sort of momentum. Whereas like when you talk about the World Cup, they're not every four years because you're following those teams and those countries.

I just – And this is my long-winded way of saying I don't know what's going on here. Do you have any ideas? I don't know. It's staggering, the decline. No. Staggering. I never – I'm like, I don't care less for years and years and years and years for a long time, unless I was forced to.

There's so much to watch. I think that's what I feel like. I never think, oh, yeah, the Olympics. I honestly rather watch cable news, which I really don't like watching anymore. But, you know, it's interesting because I watched a sporting thing the other day. I was sort of going, there's so much to watch, whether you go on the Disney app or the Netflix app or even the Peacock app, all of them. And what's interesting, interesting i found something called torn which is an amazing documentary about a climber named alex low and his family it's just a great story and it's sporty i didn't you know it was all about this sort of guy that died in an avalanche and his climbing partner

married his wife it was really fascinating this guy's what he sacrificed he had a large family um and i i watched every bit of it i thought thought it was great. It was a very, that kind of story. If you're a rock climber or you do base jumping, it's irresponsible to have a family, in my view. Anyways, but back to the Olympics. This stuff is so grounded. I remember the specific moment for the first time in my life. I saw something on TV, and I registered in my parents' faces, something is wrong. Something is very uncomfortable here. And it was, we were watching

TV, and this man came out on the balcony of a hotel in a ski mask. And my mom, like, visibly gasped. And it was when they took the Israeli team hostages in the 72 Olympics. And I remember I was seven at the time. I remember that was like the first time I ever looked at my parents and they were sort of visibly shaken by something they were watching on TV. And then I remember Nadi Komanich. I remember, I mean, there's just been so many amazing moments. Michael Phelps and there's been so many incredible Olympic moments, Muhammad Ali lighting the flame in Atlanta.

And I just think, I wonder if those moments, my kids aren't going to remember that. They're going to have new moments. My kids could give a shit about the Olympics. I don't even think they know they're on. This is crazy. It's jumped the shark. It really has jumped the shark. I don't know if there's a compelling story, but there are compelling stories.

There's that Chinese skater that fell. Anyway, it's an interesting issue. I think it's just part of a trend. Just like a lot of the other trends, people have moved on. People have moved on. Yeah, I think that's right. Speaking of not moving on, let's get to our first big story. More bad news at Spotify. In a compilation video making the rounds on Twitter, Joe Rogan uses the N-word a lot.

The video features clips from 12 years of Rogan's show. Rogan apologized for using the racial slur. He said the clips are taken out of context. I'm not sure if he said all of them were. Spotify pulled at least 70 episodes. Some of them, he's talking to comics about different things. Spotify pulled at least 70 episodes of his podcast archives, although they said he did it. It's not clear why or if he used the word in those episodes.

One fan website says the number of pulled episodes is actually more than 100. And again, Spotify said that Daniel said that the removal was Rogan's decision. The missing episodes all predate his deal with Spotify. Obviously, they didn't listen to them, which brings to a kind. He also had what I thought was a pretty awful statement to his employees, which he kept going back to cancel culture and silencing.

No one said they were silencing anybody. It was ridiculous. It's such a virtue signal by these people. So, he sort of explained why, but he put it onto Rogan. Like, I don't understand the caginess. I put out a lot of tweets this week about this and got a lot of response. Even though there's some crazy Rogan fans. I wasn't really attacking Rogan.

I was talking about Spotify. But what do you think? I think Rogan has handled this much better than Spotify. And that is... Yeah, we've said that before. I've heard from a lot of people, and a lot of people have written me really thoughtful emails about how disappointed they are that I took my content down,

that they see that this is a world where people tend to, you know, shoot first and ask questions later, that the dissenter's voice is really important, that he didn't do this with any malice, and that this feels like you're going down a slippery slope of cancellation. And that this is important, that the dissenter's voice couldn't be more important around. And when you decide that certain issues you don't want to hear dissenter's voice, the road is paved to hell. And I want to be clear, I agree with all of that. And what I spent so much time writing over the weekend to these very thoughtful responses, who people who really seem genuinely let down by me, is that there's a difference. No one is trying to silence him. Neither you nor me has said we need to censor him,

or at least I'll speak for me. My beef is with Spotify, and that is like any responsible media company that has huge influence. They have an obligation, especially around content they publish, to fact-check things such as vaccines. And we are sitting here at 65% vaccination versus 90. We have the highest death rate per capita of any wealthy country. And if you look at the data that explains it, it seems to be one of two things. C above, 65% vaccination versus 90 in other G7 countries, and two, our obesity problem. The right has weaponized and politicized vaccines. The left has politicized body shaming. But if you are a large... I've done interviews with the BBC, the Wall Street Journal, and who was it? The Nikkei Times. And they all... Someone calls me back the next day and says,

you said Honda's only getting $7,000 in market cap per company. Where did you get that data? They're not silencing me. They're not censoring me. They're fact-checking. And when you say, when Spotify says across any of their network that a vaccine alters your DNA, they have an obligation to fact-check that and say, no, every medical journal we have read has said no. So we're not trying to silence them. I also want to say, just so I can piss off everybody, I don't like what's going on.

I think Indy Ari has every right, if she's offended by anything he does, to pull her music, pull her content. That's our right. We're capitalists. We get to decide who we work with. We get, fine, I get it. What I don't like or what I have,

it feels uncomfortable to me, is when people pull out their Guardians of Gacha outfit and pull out a time machine and editing software and start looking at an entire body of work and going after somebody with what I feel is unfair cherry picking. I think that a lot of people, I think a lot of people rightfully say any use of the N-word disqualifies you. I get that. But if you're talking about any comedian or anybody, I don't care if you're Howard Stern, I don't care if you're Oprah, if someone decides to come after you and they have the benefit of tens of thousands of hours and an editing machine, boy, they can come after you. And it makes me uncomfortable that this is unfortunately more from Spotify's obligation to what feels quite frankly like a personal attack. People want us to like slam Rogan. He is what he is. To me, they didn't listen to him, right? They didn't do the due diligence of listening to them. That's what it feels like. They feel like they're flat footed on this stuff. like they're they feel like they're flat-footed on this stuff um one of the apparently deleted episodes interesting was an interview with uh well former far-right troll chuck johnson i know him now in which he spouts racist pseudoscience nonsense he actually just wrote a piece saying

i think i apologize for that and also i think he should be joe rodent should be thrown off the platform which is the only really big person who was on the show who said that which is interesting um but absolutely india arey should be able to pull her music if she wants to and i don't know which is the only really big person who was on the show who said that, which is interesting. But absolutely, India Arie should be able to pull her music if she wants to. And I don't know why people need to attack Neil Young or Joni Mitchell. They're just doing what they're allowed to do. One of the things that's interesting is just the silence and cancel culture thing. I was so surprised and disappointed by that.

They should just take responsibility. And one of the things that's interesting is a lot of their defenders are calling Joe Rogan, he's not corporate media. I'm like, come on, he's really powerful. Like, okay, fine, he's just Joe Rogan media, and that's more powerful. And they're like, you're just jealous. I'm like, no, no, he's just like has responsibilities, whatever. He's not a little guy, guys. He's not. He's affecting the stock price. He's not William Wallace. He's the king's guard. Yes's not. He's affecting the stock price of a tech company

that paid him $100 million. The removal was his decision. He's a big boy. Stop it. Stop like babifying Joe Rogan like he's like a babe in the woods. It's exhausting. I acknowledge he's powerful. You know, they so much want to be like you media people. It's like. I acknowledge he's powerful. You know, they so much want to be like, you media people. It's like, I hate him. Congratulations on your success for even people I can't stand. I usually am like, especially if it's startup-y, I kind of like it. I love sort of tweaking the corporate media. I work for a lot of corporate media, but I also have created media companies myself. And so we don't want him to fail necessarily. It's just or any of these people. It's just that's just their little calling card.

They're like, oh, it's, you know, there's a couple of sub stack. It is so wrong in my view. Exhaustingly. And you've written about this. Spotify has gone to the gone to the big tech playbook. Let's wrap ourselves in a blanket with words like silencing. And they claim we want the platform to remain an open platform. Spotify isn't an open platform.

You charge people to go on there. You do. I can't post content on Spotify. It's not an open platform. Let's do that. And this notion that he's being silenced, no, he's not. People are asking that you show

some of the same fidelity to key issues around fact-checking and editing that every other responsible media company demonstrates. Or maybe listen to the guy you hired. I wrote, the use of the pointedly scary and loaded word silencing is a tech tell here, creating a false narrative where most are just asking for corrections of blatant and dangerous inaccuracies. Not a gag on Rogan. It's ridiculous. They're trying to create a fake story. It's just- Here's where they blew it. Here's where they blew it. He strikes me, Joe Rogan strikes me as a reasonable guy that doesn't wake up in the morning and say, how do I disenfranchise and belittle people? I just don't think that's his MO. If Spotify had sat down with Joe Rogan- And by the way, reason why we can disagree to that. A lot of people think he is, but go ahead.

Go ahead. I don't either, but go ahead. They've sat down and said, look, people for a lot of reasons, as the nation has decided that it's time for COVID to go endemic, and it's not necessarily the virus is specifically endemic, but we've decided we're over it. And unfortunately, we're going into a steady state of quote-unquote living with this pandemic, which means not taking the precautions we were taking when we're at 65% versus 90%, which is really unfortunate. And vaccines, the more we learn about it, we find that in fact, all science,

which is iterative, points to how fantastic these things are. So we're going to decide on issues as it relates to vaccines across our network that we need a certain amount of fact-checking. Joe, are you up for that? I think he would have said, yeah. And then they could have put out a statement saying, we get it. We get it. And this is what we're going to do about it. And Joe's agreed to it. And so has every one of our other vertically controlled podcasts. Instead, we want to remain an open pile. And this bullshit, we will not be silenced.

There was another tell in the statement where he said that exclusive content like Rogan's gives Spotify leverage to make deals with critical hardware partners like Amazon, Google, even Tesla, who are building out their own streaming services with overlapping content. That was the tell. We need this guy. We need this guy. And that's fine. Just say that. That's fine. Just say that.

And that's that. They also said they're committing $100 million to license development, market music, and content by creators from historically marginalized groups. What does that mean? They're going to stream more Kanye? What does that mean? I don't know. What does that mean? I'm a gay. I don't know. I don't want their money for that. So you're 99 million. Who gets the other million? I mean, seriously, what does that mean?

I don't think I have to go full. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know this whole thing. I want to talk to Daniel. I think Daniel's really smart. It's just, this is so, people who have been close to him, and I've talked to a couple of them, are like, he's just in total denial. I've talked to several people who used to work there, and they're all like, this is so playbook-y for him. He thinks he's in the old world where he can just pontificate endlessly about the First Amendment, and so he can't. You know, and also, by the way, one podcaster is claiming that Spotify pulled a Rogan episode with no racial slurs, but in which he criticized the Saudi Arabian government. That I'm not surprised by. I could see them doing that.

But, you know, they just, they selectively pull things. They do, and they can, and they will. And they just have to, like, just talk in plain English. It would be so nice if they talked in plain English and stopped with all the libertarian virtue signaling. I think I'll use that word. Libertarian virtue signaling. Anyway. Agreed.

Scott, are you feeling good about being off? You're still feeling good? Feeling good? I've learned a lot. Yes. I've, you know, a couple things. Roxane Gay's article really, really moved me because the thing I was struggling about and doing it was the glass house I was erecting for myself because I don't have moral clarity around this.

I advertise on Facebook because I don't think we have any choice, and I'm an influencer. They're not a decision maker. But I just think all across my world, and Roxane Gay just pointed out in a capitalist world, it's almost impossible to be pure, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to do the right thing on specific issues. Agreed. And there's also this thing in yoga called your behavior off the mat. And that is if you spend an hour and a half trying to be peaceful and mindful and stretch and challenge yourself and think about balance, that your life off the mat gets healthier. You think, you know, maybe I shouldn't have this ice cream or this waffle. And what I found is since doing this, it's motivated me to be a little bit more consistent. I called my CEO at Section 4 and I said, how can we get off of Instagram? How can we stop advertising on Instagram? You know, I called- Why don't you do a podcast called Off the Mat, Scott, and try to do challenges off the mat?

But what I would say to people is that it's easy to decide I'm not going to do this because it creates hypocrisy in my life. And I get that. I feel that a lot. But at the same time, that shouldn't abdicate you from saying, all right, maybe you got it wrong here, here, and here. Maybe everything isn't a perfectly round ball. But that shouldn't stop you from trying to do the right things. This, for me, is a nod to science. It's a nod to vaccines.

It's a nod to someone I lost in my life. I'm backing you, Scott Galloway. I'm not backing you. By the way, speaking of hypocrisy, the tweets from people like Mark Andreessen, it's the witch trials. First of all, Mark, you need to know his truth. I was blocked by him. I feel validated. I was blocked by him on Twitter.

He blocks everybody. He's become such a like he's become such a delicate flower but that's just crap that's just crap like witch trial what did he I don't know

I'm not familiar with it he just put how he just put a tweet about Salem I'm not supposed to be able to see them but someone sent it to me but because I'm blocked

but nonetheless let me just oh Salem witch trials are about women and misogyny, Mark. But whatever, however you want to take them, you're not the one I want to get historical, shitty historical interpretations from. I really, I could go to lots of places for that, and you're not the one. And it's so victim mentality, these people. They're not just like, they're not just virtue

signaling sort of bizarre libertarianism. They're also shitty victim acting. I know real victims. I've met real victims. They're not them. They're not. They're victimizers is what they are. It's just ridiculous. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, we'll look at big news from Amazon and Snap. And we'll speak to a friend of Pivot, Wajahat Ali. of Pivot, Wajah the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built

to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed

to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell

victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Support for the show comes from Alex Partners. In business, disruption brings not only challenges, but opportunities. As artificial intelligence powers pivotal moments of change, Alex Partners is the consulting firm chief executives can rely on. Alex Partners is dedicated to making sure your company knows what really matters when it comes to AI. As part of their 2024 tech sector report, Alex Partners spoke with

nearly 350 tech executives from across North America and Europe to dig deeper into how tech companies are responding to these changing headwinds. And in their 2024 Digital Disruption Report, Alex Partners found that 88% of executives report seeing potential for growth from digital disruption, with 37% seeing significant or even extremely high positive impact on revenue growth. You can read both reports and learn how to convert digital disruption into revenue growth at www.alexpartners.com. That's www.alexpartners.com.

In the face of disruption, businesses trust Alex Partners to get straight to the point and deliver results when it really matters. Scott, we're back with more news from quarterly earnings reports. There's so many. We finally know the size of Amazon's ad business. As you said, a massive $31 billion that's bigger than the ad business

of Microsoft, Snapchat, and Twitter combined. Twitter's got to keep up, I've got to say. Not that Snap is complaining. The company had its first profitable quarter according to its latest earnings report, and the stock is getting a nice boost, more than 40%, even more. I think it went and soared up more. They weren't alone.

Shares of Peloton also surged Friday on the news that Amazon is looking to acquire it. Nike is also said to be interested. Or? Nike. Nike. Who said that? Oh, my gosh. Who said that?

You did. We both were talking about the Peloton thing. Anyway, let's start with let's start with um uh we talked about amazon so big big deal big deal with the advertising correct that makes perfect sense why should they pay for every place when they've got their own networks right they should that's a good business for them search search is pulling away from display advertising amazon and amazon the second largest search engine google the first it's a different business but i have to say i use search on amazon quite a bit more than i used to and continuing second largest search engine, Google the first. It's a different business. But I have to say, I use search on Amazon quite a bit

more than I used to and continuing. Second largest search engine in the world. Should be. I search a lot. But they still are also on Google. They pay a lot to Google. So it's huge. It's going to be huge and huger.

It's a big business for them. Snap. What do you think about Snap? So it found a way to work inside Apple's privacy changes. That's because they behave better. Snap is succeeding because it's not an information thief. So what do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean, Snap is trading like a penny stock. I think it was up 50% or 60% on the earnings. It went way down and then popped back up. I still think Snap, Pinterest, and Twitter are all going to be probably acquired in the next 24 months. But they've carved out a niche. Good for them. The specific crowds out. The general.

Switching gears because I don't have any more to say about it. Just see that Frontier and Spirit Airlines are emerging. Kara, I am the Spirit Airlines of relationships. It's like, okay, I recognize you have a lot of choices, but you fucked up and you chose me. You're stuck with me. Spirit Airlines. That's good. That's good airline humor.

No. Well, what's interesting, I think, about this is Amazon's ad business is based on sponsored search results, not social media. Google, this whole idea of monetized user data, I think, is over. It's what do you want? It's contextual. What do you want? It's contextual. What do you want? And here's the search, which they talked about at DuckDuckGo and everywhere else. I think it's an interesting situation.

Instead of this targeted bullshit that goes on that really does have, in the very end, you end up with Alex Jones. I don't know how else to say it, but it gets there. It ultimately gets there. So, very interesting business models. I think Facebook has got to pay attention to this. They don't need to make a pivot to the metaverse. They need to pivot their business, their actual business, in a way that is different. And I don't think they're able to do that. I don't know. I think they've got to get, I mean, look at the two things that have happened. They've lost out to a company that controls the

distribution, Apple. So, they have to establish their own distribution. a company that controls the distribution, Apple. So they have to establish their own distribution. I think that's the right move. I don't think the tactics are the same. And they've gotten kicked up funnel, which is bad for them. And so they want to find more opportunities where they will control the distribution, create more user engagement, and have more data. So it strikes me that they're actually trying to do the right thing. I just

don't think it's working. Yeah. And Oculus will take too long. You know, I have an Oculus. I'm going to start trying it out. Do I have to join Facebook to do it? I mean, I have joined Facebook. I just don't want to close it down, but didn't get rid of it. I don't know. Maybe I'll make a fake Facebook account. Anyway, this Peloton thing, let's have a little crowing here. But by Amazon, does it make sense? It makes sense. It totally makes sense. I don't think we mentioned Amazon. Yeah, it does. Once you hear it, it does. I mean, if they roll it into Prime, they could scale that thing and they could also say- Service, delivery.

They could also say to Foley and his team, you can either wait till this thing recovers to 60 or 80 bucks or we'll buy you and we'll create an incentive, you can either wait till this thing recovers to 60 or 80 bucks, or we'll buy you and we'll create an incentive system that when we 10x this thing, we'll give you a participation in that. And very few companies can offer that sort of upside. Otherwise, he'll say to any suitor, I'm not going to be bought on the cheap here. So, and Amazon solves their supply chain. They immediately could roll it into the ultimate recurring revenue bundle with- They work with hardware too. They're not terrible.

Imagine like, would you like to buy this outfit now? Would you like a better diet? I mean, they could start putting stuff on the screen while you're in this immersive metaverse called Peloton and start selling you stuff, start programming stuff. Yes. And if they wanted to, they could take the user base up tenfold by saying for 90 days, it's part of Amazon Prime Plus, which is X dollars per month. I mean, they could just, they could absolutely scale this thing. And who's got the second best supply chain in the world?

Well, Apple's got the best probably. The second best is Amazon. And that's really been their Achilles heel. And you're right. It does fit in nicely with books or food or whatever. And also, the stock is down 79% from a year ago, from $1.15 to right now it's at $29. It's up over the past five days, 6%. Not a lot, but enough. So, it's not going to going to get a huge premium, but it's maybe half of what it was last year. Yeah, but this is the thing. This is the problem with dual-class shareholder companies.

The shareholders will get a slight premium, but the people who control the company will get their own deal. And that is, Jeff Bezos will say to them, all right, we'll pay a 40 percent premium to the shareholders. Fine. They end up with an okay deal. But John Foley and his band of 10, 15 insiders, we're going to give you a billion dollars in internal earn out based on our ability to scale this thing. And that's the problem with dual-class shareholder structures. Anyways, I wish I'd thought of it. Amazon now seems like a pretty rational fit. We'll see. It does. It does. It makes sense in a lot of ways. Amazon now seems like a pretty rational fit. We'll see. It does.

It does. It makes sense in a lot of ways. Amazon is also increasing the annual price of Prime to $139. Everyone's going to pay it. I think this is going to be a raging stock. It's going to be a raging stock. I don't ever give stock recommendations. Just for my own usage. Unless they raise it to $13,900, which I would still do.

I mean, they've got incredible pricing power. This is about as high as I would— Yeah, right. This is getting close to be like— Yeah, right. I'm telling you it is. I'm like, mm-mm-mm-mm. Those hair products aren't going to get there on their own, Cara.

That's true. I do. I use Amazon so much. I feel—I just use it a lot. It's one product I use a lot. All right, Scott. Fascinating times. We'll see what happens.

And when we win, let's take a victory lap, okay? Mm-hmm. All right, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Wajahat Ali is a columnist for The Daily Beast and an author of Go Back to Where You Came From and other helpful suggestions on how to become an American, in which he describes coming of age after 9-11. He also responds to race's hate email with a good deal of wit at the beginning. Welcome to Pivot. I'm going to call you Old Man Waj, because that's what you've named yourself on our Riverside recording.

Welcome, Old Man Waj. Well, either that or not Kumail Nanjiani, like I said, or Freed Zacharia 2. Or I should say Freed Zacharia 2A. 2A. But I feel like I finally made it, because I'm talking or FreedZacharia2. Or I should say FreedZacharia2A. 2A. But I feel like I finally made it because I'm talking to Kara Swisher and Scott. I'm a resident of the Bay Area. So for all the nerds, I feel like this is like, you know, nerd Valhalla when you finally reach this point where you talk to Kara.

Congratulations. This is a nice moment for you. Let's acknowledge that. Let's acknowledge that you're lucky to be here. You're lucky to be here. The immigrant parents, that's why they came here. They said, you know, eventually. you got to get on with Kara. They don't know who we are.

They're probably like, who? I don't know. Anyway. Kira? Kira? What? Anyway. So I really enjoyed this book.

It was very funny. I was much funnier. I thought it would be angrier than funny. I don't know why. Because a few weeks ago, we spoke to Jonathan Greenblatt, not the same tone of it could happen here. He's the ADL. Your book makes the case for Muslim Americans. It has happened here. But the beginning of the book was very funny, where you respond to racist hate mail, which must be just a delight to do. But instead of being angry, you were very funny. Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Yeah. So the book is what I call a love letter to a country that doesn't love us back, and perhaps an elegy for the rest of us who aren't running for Congress through a sham narrative of the hillbilly elegy, where we exploit the trauma of the Appalachians. Maybe I said too much. My bad. And I think oftentimes when you are brown-skinned or black or the other or Jewish or a woman in this country, LGBTQ+, whoever's marginalized, we get a lot of unsolicited recommendations from our fans. Oftentimes to go back or go kill yourself or go F a goat or a camel. So, you know, you can respond through anger, which is legitimate. You don't have to say F here. I think they were saying you're already a goat fucker, correct?

I think they were. Oh, yeah, yeah. Thank you. No problem. Please feel free. So I decided, why not respond like Bugs Bunny? Because oftentimes we respond like Daffy Duck. And if you've ever seen those cartoons, and this is why I'm an old man, because I'm referring to these old cartoons that the young folks won't get.

Like, the anvil always drops on Daffy Duck's head. But, like, with Bugs Bunny, they always forget, like, Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd are always chasing Bugs Bunny. Like if you watch those cartoons, Bugs Bunny is always chilling in his like bunny hole, like relaxing. And so the way Bugs Bunny responds is sometimes he kisses Elmer Fudd and destroys him. He uses his own like traps against him. He uses wit. And so I thought the book opens and I tried to be stylistically a bit different, a bit irreverent. I'm like, okay, let me just hit you right out of the gate with these amazing, beautiful, exquisite, lovely email recommendations I get. Go back to where you came from. Go fuck a goat or a camel.

And so I respond, why only goats and camels? Why limit my options? Two legs good, four legs good. And it's just one of those situations. That's a Scott Galloway mantra, you know, in many ways. Two legs good, four legs good. Spread the love. So that's how Scott feels. That's a Scott Galloway mantra, you know, in many ways. Two legs good, four legs good. Spread the love. So that's how I responded.

Like, maybe you can respond if you can use humor. I get it. I get you're using humor, but you get a lot of attacks online. You've written to me before and others. And they're pretty ugly. Like, I just, I'm sort of, you know, you can joke with these people for so long. But you think this is the best way to deal with them because you get a ton on Twitter. No, no, no, no.

It is my way to deal with them in the sense that because if you sit there and respond to it, as you know, it's exhausting. Racism ultimately is exhausting. You spend all your time fighting bad faith actors who demand that you prove your civilizational worth to them. And then when you do, they still say it's not enough, right? Especially with Muslims. I mentioned this in the book after 9-11. We're supposed to condemn violence done by violent people we've never met. And no matter how fast you condemn, and no matter how hard you condemn, and no matter how much you engage in the condemnathon, no matter how much you prove your moderation, never enough. And so you've just wasted the entire day. So most of the times what I say, I really mean this for those who are listening,

is ignoring is a response. I'll repeat this. Ignoring is a response. So I ignore most of it. But then when I choose to engage, I try to take the piss out of them. And then humor, like my humor, I think is also blunt. It's not just silliness.

Like you can dismantle your opponent with humor sometimes as well. And it's like a slap in the face. And so sometimes mocking the bully disrobes them and shows them how impotent they really are to a public, right? Like it could really debase them. So that's what I choose to do sometimes as well. And there is some rage in there.

I think that rage is earned. I get a couple of questions. First off, nice to meet you. Secondly, what do you think Americans, what do you think the biggest misperception or the stereotype or damaging stereotype is about Muslim Americans? And also, I think we sometimes – I don't want to call us the coastal elite, but people who think of themselves as progressives, just assign all of the type of bigotry you assigned to people who are, you know, whatever, not worth the effort. But I think there's signs of this type of kind of bigotry light in fairly sophisticated circles. And I'd be curious, what are the stereotypes that you would like to,

or the biggest misconceptions of Muslim Americans that you think people hold into? What are some examples of what I'll call more insidious anti-Muslim rhetoric that you find in New York and L.A. and among, quote-unquote, the elites? Oh, yeah, it's there. So, first of all, only one. There's several, but one of them is that somehow a practicing Muslim is similar to a violent extremist. That the prototypical Muslim is Osama and Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah and not me.

The second one is that Islam is a foreign thing, that somehow it's separate from America or separate from Americans, and that it belongs to a 1980s action movie where Chuck Norris goes and kills this brown booyah base of terrorists, right? That literally is the image that was force-fed to us for years that actually helped the war on terror. It made it much more palatable. Look, these are the enemies, axes of evil, them, the villains, the terrorists, the bad guys. And would you not forfeit your civil liberties and your freedoms

to empower the war on terror to go after them? Surveillance and Patriot Act, torture. And people are like, yes, of course. When it comes to this type of Islamophobia, anti-Muslim bigotry, freedoms to empower the war on terror to go after them surveillance and patriot act torture and people are like yes of course when it comes to this type of islamophobia anti-muslim bigotry if you don't like the word that's fine it's i call it the last refuge for bigots i'll give you an example like bill maher the type of stuff he openly says against muslims just replace muslim with any other group impossible you know the mafia they bring the desert stuff here they don't respect their like he just said it recently right look at these people he he cedes the ground to the extremists it's a this is real islam uh and and you sit there and go huh nobody ever on a show

progressive coastal elites liberals ever checks them the only two people who ever ben affleck did batman ben affleck and glenn greenwald before he became a complete freak those are the only two people who ever- Well, Ben Affleck did. Batman Ben Affleck. Yeah. And Glenn Greenwald before he became a complete freak. Those are the only two. When it comes to my personal interaction with the type of what you're saying, the educated, worldly, highly educated Democrat voters, I've had so many people who told me like, you're one of the moderate Muslims, the casual- Yeah, you talk about that in the book, the moderate Muslim. I found that really interesting, the way you characterize that. Explain, explain it. The safe, neutered Muslim who is not a threat, the unicorn.

You're not like them. Are you, and usually within these elite circles, it's like, do you drink alcohol? And I'm like, I don't. You don't? Do you actually believe in God? I'm like, I do. Do you fast? You're like, I don't. You don't? Do you actually believe in God? I'm like, I do. Do you fast? You're like, yes. And yet you're not violent. And you made a witty joke and you read books,

huh? There was this one agent in New York who was trying to like dine me to get me one time as his client. And he said, before reading you, I didn't know Muslims could be funny. And I'm like, why not? He goes, yeah, why not? And then he had like this weird monologue with himself. And he goes, when I looked at Muslims, I just thought they were very, he made this face. And I'm like constipated. He goes, no, no, just very serious, serious. And then he had like this five-minute monologue with himself where he was trying to interrogate himself as to why he thought Muslims were serious because we're people. And the whole time I was just eating branzino fish for the first time. I'm like, thank you for this delicious fish.

So these are some of the comments that me and my friends casually get in liberal, educated circles. It's interesting, because you talk a lot in your book growing up. You're quite a culture. You just talked about Bugs Bunny, but culture was an important part, American culture, especially television culture.

And so many of the depictions were like this. Now, dozens and dozens and dozens, you don't even understand the impact on you. You know, I'm a big, not Chuck Norris necessarily, but a lot of those movies, like I like all the action movies and every one of them have bad representation, like bad, very bad. And some of the others have been corrected, never that one. You know, I can't tell you how many I've watched. I don't even know. Do you think that's changed over the years?

Because I'm thinking even when I was watching some cartoon with my kids 20 years ago, the depictions of people from – not Muslim necessarily, but were very bad. Like I was thinking very bad when I looked at them at the time. So do you think it's changed over the last 20 years? It's a little bit better, but remember Sex and the City 2 that came out 10 years ago? It's like this Orientalist fantasy. I remember I saw them, like, what's happening? How can-

The condom thing. You wrote about it, the condom dropping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote about it. Just go watch Sex and the City 2. It's so hilarious. Can you say more as a Sex and the City fan? I don't know what you're referring to.

By the way, don't watch and just like that. The movie is terrible. The unfortunate movie. Yeah, the movie. And then I think the cartoon you're referring to is- When they go to Dubai, is that what you're talking about? Yes. Yeah, when they go to Abu Dhabi, but it wasn't Abu Dhabi.

And apparently the filmmakers were pissed off because Abu Dhabi said no. So the entire movie is like this two-hour screed against Abu Dhabi. And it's just like every trope you've ever imagined. It's like remarkable. So that was just 10 years ago. And I think the cartoon you were talking about was Aladdin, the one without Will Smith when Robin Williams was there. It's like where they don't like your face,

it's barbaric, but hey, it's home, and then Disney had to cut out that line years later. They're like, oh, yeah, this is problematic. And so, yeah, growing up, imagine if you're a brown-skinned kid and you sit there rooting for Chuck Norris in these movies. And then years later you go, oh, I was the villain. I was the bad guy.

I was a sidekick. I was the cannon fodder. And then after 9-11, very quickly, it changed to the only good Muslim is the Muslim that helps the CIA. That's right. Or the national security. Who's turned on his own people. Yeah, that's right. And it's only one, like the unicorn. Right. That's right. seeing the emergence of the complex character who happens to be Muslim, like the Rami or the

Hasan Minhaj or the Ms. Marvel comic book. It took a long ass time. But what about online? Has that gotten worse? Because it seems like it has. I see a lot of stuff that I'm like, wow, you couldn't do that with a lot of things. So someone said this to me, they're like, but Wajahat has gotten better precisely for the reason you mentioned. Like, look, you have Hasan Minhaj and you have Kumail and you have Ms. Marvel and this and that. And I'm like, yes yes but let me tell you how frightening it's gone with one example if george w bush i think all of us are old enough to remember the disaster that was his presidency and we assumed he'd be the worst president of our lifetimes but america is like nope i got a surprise for you if george w bush ran for president in 2024

the republican party would reject him for being a Muslim lover. The entire conservative movement and one of the two major political parties openly traffics on anti-Muslim bigotry. It's part and parcel of the party. So much so that they say it openly without apology. And when Lauren Bubert says what she says, none of them condemn her, right? And so that's something remarkable and new, that you have an entire right-wing movement, which the foundation rests upon xenophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry unchecked. Yeah, it's Bobert, but I'm going to let that one go. When you coach young men, young Muslim men, and you say this is your role in helping advance or helping to – other than – I mean, you're effective.

Humor is an incredible equalizer. It's incredible at disarming people. Do you coach young men around what they should expect and what they can do in their role in making it better for future generations? Thankfully, no one looks at me as a leader and a coach. Dude, you wrote a book. You must have been thinking about that. Yeah, yeah. But, like, you know, what I do tell people, though,

and it's not just Muslims, right? And I mean this. I guess I'm a writer. That's what I've chosen to be. That's one of the very few only superhero skill I might have is once in a while I can spin a good yarn. I think it's important to tell your own story. If you aren't telling your story, your story is always being told to you in America by others. And the importance is not just to tell your story, but tell your story with all the

authenticity. And I always joke with the merchant masala that they always tell us to take out. That's the advice I was given that I rejected 15 years ago. Take away everything that makes your story unique. And I'll give you the euphemism. Your ethnic story has to translate to the mainstream. Translation. Hey, Darkie, make your story palatable to the whites. And I've had agents tell me this and like producers tell me this. And I just ignored it. And I said, I have faith in the whites. I think the whites will appreciate a good story. You don't have to hold the hands of the whites. And so telling your story in any avenue that you can and with authenticity and not ceding the ground is critical in a country which, as we are talking right now, is actively trying to ban and erase

our narratives from the textbooks and from schools. It doesn't seem like it's a backward thing because one of the things I was going to ask you is what your definition of the American dream is now with all this happening? The definition of the American dream sometimes is just surviving. And I'm not trying to be glib about that. I feel like survival during a pandemic and survival during this time where there's Muslim bans and people are celebrating the president, the former president, saying go back to your asshole countries. It's victory. You can say shithole. Surviving with dignity. You can also say shithole. Yeah, shithole. Surviving with joy is a victory. And I think maybe thriving with joy is still, in my definition of the American dream,

that why can't our kids survive and thrive with joy and dream audaciously that they can be the co-protagonist of the narrative. If they can, number one, dream it and actually be it, we have achieved the American dream. The problem is, I think us, we're trying to expand the American narrative to include the rest of us. And we have forces. We've always had these forces in America who are always trying to restrict. And you're seeing it now. Restrict what we can read, restrict our history, restrict the starting point of our history. Who gets to be the hero? And they're so unsettled and unnerved by the fact that we're not trying to replace them. We just want a speaking role. And they're like, nope, those roles belong to us. So this is a tension that's always happened. And

I said this in the book, I'll say it on your program. I think we're witnessing the death rattle of white supremacy, which has transformed into a global death march. That's one of the major struggles of our life. What do we do with this death march? They're sure noisy on the way out. We assumed it was headed in one direction, but it can absolutely head the other direction. Do you see any silver linings? My sense is more Muslims, and not a lot, but have been elected to Congress.

We might have our first senator, a Muslim Republican senator, which who cares, a big fan of in Pennsylvania. No, I'm not. Running for Senate. Sorry, I couldn't resist. But anyways, do you see any silver linings or progress here? Yeah, of course. I mean, look, you have to. The opposite of that is apathy and cynicism. And then we just like eat Ben and Jerry's ice creams and just dilute ourselves and just sit in the corner, watch Netflix and cry. But yeah, look, I'm invited as a guest on your show. My book was published. I was joking with Sam Sanders, who's a host on NPR, who's a black man. Like we were joking, like if, you know, in 2006, can you imagine me and Sam

talking for an hour on NPR? And we went through like all the scenarios and the scenarios was like every white host would be like sick or like staying at home watching a friend's episode. And like, there'd be desperate for like the one person who could speak into a microphone or to track the listeners and put them on a list of enemies of state yeah they're like samuel l jackson talk to freed zecheria he goes my name's sam like whatever so the fact that you know we're here the fact that we have elected officials the fact that there's a multicultural coalition the fact that democratic presidential candidates actually said the word white supremacy and were like against it in 2020, like baby steps, but steps. And I feel like there, you know, there's, that's what we have to look at.

We have the numbers, but the problem is it's what I call the flabby moderate majority, which is going up against a very zealous ideological minority that wakes up every day with a mission. With a mission. And, and the, yeah. And, and the thing is you give me a minority,

a zealous minority versus a flabby moderate majority. That zealous minority can carve us like butter. And they have the internet to help them. And they have the internet. And, and disinformation and internet and greed where, where people are perfect. You know,

let's be honest, Zuckerberg and Les Moonves and like this guy of Spotify, they're perfectly fine. Yeah. And with this ridiculous statement a couple of days ago, was it yesterday actually? Yeah, silencing. They're being silenced. I like your tweet.

That was a very good tweet. They're silencing. Like no one's silencing, bro. Joe Rogan will be fine. Yeah, exactly. Let me ask you one of the last question I have is you write a lot about your child who was sick and the agony that was. It was recently um so how how how are they doing uh she's right

next to me you could probably hear her chirping she's doing virtual school she's wearing her one of her three costumes uh of the day that's nuseba she's five years old she was diagnosed with stage four cancer right before the pandemic so far all, all is good. Brand new liver. All the tests came back negative. Her hair's come back. She doesn't remember much of it. I remember, of course, everything. Yeah, you write very movingly of it, I have to say.

And we have a pandemic baby, Khadija, who was born, who doesn't understand these things called crowds and people. And then we have Ibrahim, the seven-year-old. And apparently, he got me addicted to Lego during the pandemic. So he just commanded me that I have to finish Pirates of the Caribbean ship by next week. Oh, wow. That's great. It was so interesting. I was reading, two books I was reading last night was Sandy Hook book, which is, because I interviewed one of the parents today. And I was like, oh, phew, now Wajah's book is going to be funny. And then I was like, oh my

God, like it was, but you wrote about it beautifully. It was really quite lovely. Scott, do you have a final question? First of all, it's such good news that your daughter's doing well. But just on, you know, you have your world of work, you have your world of friends, and something comes off the tracks of one of your kids

and the whole universe just shrinks to that kid. That's right. How has that changed you as a dad, as a husband? Well, that's a good question. You know, you're just grateful. You realize how quickly there could be a plot twist. And like you said, your entire world can unravel. And you feel like, even if you have everything under control,

this was pre-pandemic. You know, what do they say? Man plans, God laughs, right? And so you kind of realize how powerless you are, especially as a dad, because I write about this, but you're like, how do I fix cancer? I'm the dad, you're supposed to fix everything. Yeah, how am I supposed to be a protector?

I can't do this. And so you've, and even with the pandemic, how can I, one mortal soul, take on a pandemic that has killed 5 million people? And so it kind of humbles you in many ways, but it makes you also live in the moment and realize you can only control what you can. Do what you can with your hands and then

leave the rest. And that's the last chapter of the book, right? There's a great saying in Islam, have faith but tie your camel, which means do what you can with your hands and then leave the rest to fate, God, Christmas, destiny, Tom Cruise, whatever you believe in. Yeah, nobody believes in Tom Cruise. And I feel like even with democracy, right? People feel like, Kerry, destiny, Tom Cruise, whatever you believe in. Yeah, nobody believes

in Tom Cruise. And I feel like even with democracy, people feel like, Carrie, you were saying, what are we doing? I feel like there's only, anyone and everyone

who's listening, I feel like, I understand you feel so overwhelmed, but you could just, at the end of the day, do what you can. Model yourself

the best behavior you can. Change your family, the discourse. Run for school board. Run for city office. Don't cede ground, right? If that's the least you can do, that's a massive victory. Yeah, we're not going away.

There's an old gay chant we used to do during gay rights movement, which is we're not going away. We're not going away. They think. Wait, isn't that the same one? That's, yeah, we're not going, you can't dismiss us, can't ignore us. Wait, we're here. We're, oh wait, nevermind.

Queer, get used to it. Not you, Scott. Neither you, old're here. Oh, wait, never mind. Queer. Get used to it. Not you, Scott. I didn't say that. Neither do you, old man Walsh. Anyway, it's a very hopeful book, although there's a lot there. And I like the humor because you got to laugh at these. You got to laugh because it's very disturbing, a lot of it. Anyway, the book is called Go Back to Where You Came From.

It's on sale now. Thank you, Walsh Ali. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Walsh. Best to you and your family. Thank you, Karen Scott. Scott, that was a very fascinating discussion with old, Waj Ali. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Waj. Best to you and your family. Thank you, Karen Scott. Scott, that was a very fascinating discussion with old man Waj. Very good book. Very likable.

One more quick break. So likable. I know. I know. You fall for a handsome man every time. I do. I do. I like the good-looking dudes. Everyone, off mic, I offered to do a book party for him in Manhattan, and he said yes. Yes, but it's because he's good looking. I'm going to have fabulous people there.

Everyone is going to think I'm progressive and I hang out with handsome men. And they will love me, Kara. They will love me. You should actually read the book like I do. You should actually read the book. We'll smell you. Smell you. I read all the books.

Okay. You haven't read my fucking books. You should actually read my books. No, you haven't. My son did and told me about it. Oh, okay. Okay. You haven't read my fucking books. You should actually read my books. No, you haven't. My son did and told me about it. Oh, okay. That's it. So you just lied.

Is that what you're saying? I did read them. No. Well, actually, my son read them. I got things to do. Let's move along. All right, Scott. One more quick break.

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Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, wins and fails. I'm just going to let you. Do I have any wins? You go ahead. I think you have a long one. I have long ones.

Is that correct? Yeah, I have long ones. All right. Not too long. Okay, go ahead. Go for it. Thanks for that. I see you're excited about them.

Let me do mine very good. Win is watch this torn on National Geographic. It's really quite gripping. And fail the Republican Party with this legitimate political discourse. Bullshit. What an unforced error of idiocy. Jesus. Ronna McDaniel.

Like, Mick Romney needs to go speak to his niece. Yes, that's what we need, more Mitt. I'd rather have him than her. So my fail is I'm on the board of a company that's about to go public. And as they always do, they do this kind of training for directors around the difference between the director of a private to public company. And insider trading and insider information is a function of this really elegant construct called asymmetry of information. And that is the day before the earnings call, the directors know what the earnings are and the surprises to the upside or the downside. And so we can't trade in the stock.

And people say, well, if it only goes up 5%, that's not that big a deal. Actually, if you know the stock's probably going to pop 5% or 10% the next day, you could take $1 million and turn it to $3 million with short-term options. the next day, you could take a million dollars and turn it to three million with short-term options. So once your knowledge of what's happening in that organization becomes totally asymmetric to the market's knowledge, you're not allowed to trade because that results in a lack of confidence in the market, a feeling the market is rigged. And we turn this unbelievable organism of capital formation and economic security into a corrupt, crony-filled organization. So asymmetry of information. There has never been a group of people who have been allowed to engage in stock trading

with more asymmetry of information than elected representatives to the House and to the Senate. And the notion that anybody, anybody, whether it's Republican senators or our Speaker of the House, who would not see how fucking ridiculous it is that someone who has information on interest rate movements, multibillion-dollar defense contracts, vaccine efficacy trials, can then go out and trade stocks is insane. Conflicted everywhere. So this is what I'm going to do. And this is what's also ridiculous, is one of the kind of legislations, it's another head fake that's being proposed, it feels like big tech, is that we're putting in place laws that if you trade stocks, you have to give up, you will confiscate your entire salary. So this is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to loan DO dog 2022, $10 million. I'm running for Senate as an independent against Rubio and Val Demings if she doesn't get any traction. When I get elected to the Senate, I'm going to forfeit my salary and I'm going to raise money that will become a hedge fund. And I'm going to say, I'm giving my salary, assume I'm going to trade stocks on based on all information that I'm going to get in the Senate. You have to win, but okay. Okay? Okay.

And I'm going to show a greater return than any hedge fund in history when I can call Jerome Powell and say, what's happening with interest rates? When I can call Lena Kahn and say, can you brief me on FTC actions over the next 90 days? When I can call the Department of Defense and say, which submarines are you planning to buy and from whom? And I'm going to show— So you're suggesting insider trading, correct? I think that's what you're suggesting. There has never been a group of bigger insider traders than our elected representatives. And the fact that it is even a discussion is insane. Nancy Pelosi, tell your husband to stop trading stocks. And this bullshit narrative that we should be able to engage in capitalism. You should absolutely be able to engage in capitalism. And what you should do is you either put it in a blind trust or you put it in ETFs and you have trading windows.

You have much more asymmetry of information of any director of any company. And the notion that you can trade stocks freely with just a slap on the wrist is an insult and it undermines the social contract and social capital we have between the markets and investors. It is insane. Pass legislation, no elected representative in the Senate or the House should be allowed to trade stocks full stop. That's my loss. My win- Oh, well, that's never going to happen, but okay. My win. That was a speech, wasn't it? What do you think of-

Yeah, I like that. The dog is senator starting a hedge fund? Just say, I'm forfeiting my salary. I'm just going to trade stocks based on information I'm going to get. That would be a lot of fun. Why not? That would be a lot of fun. Would. It would be like that Eddie Murphy movie.

Chicken in every pot of Cialis in every medicine cabinet. That's my bumper sticker. When he came as a grifter to be a congressman, he thought it was the ultimate grift. And then he turned into a good person. That's what would happen. Yeah, I'd be the first part of that. I'd be half of that story. So my when is when I was a kid in the early 70s in Laguna Niguel, in the mid-70s, we weren't allowed to park our cars in the garage. We had a Gran Torino and a Mercury Capri,

the foreign import from Detroit. And the reason we couldn't put them in the garage is my father worked for O.M. Scott's. My father literally sold shit and that it was fertilizer. And he would go in with his charming Scottish accent and establish many friendships with the head of lawn and garden at Sears or Lowe's. And we had, I'm not joking, about 120, 40-pound bags of fertilizer in our garage, all lined up in their green and white packaging that was the O.M. Scott's brand. And about once a weekend, once every other week, someone in bad plaid pants and a penguin shirt would pull up in an AMC pacer and bring in something like a garbage disposal or a hot cream shaver heater or a food processor, a Crock-Bot. And my dad would look at me and go, hold up one finger or three fingers. And that meant go to the garage and put two bags of O.M. Scott's fertilizer in this person's trunk.

So my dad was basically doing barter with fertilizer from O.M. Scott's. And one day, this guy came over and he looked at me very excited, and he flashed his hands a couple times. It was 12 bags. And I'm first like, okay, that's 480 pounds of fertilizer an eight-year-old has to get into a car. But he said to me, he goes, tickets to the playoffs. And I'm like, okay, what does that mean? So I get the 12 bags in there, and he comes back, and he goes, have you ever been to a Rams playoff game? And we were so excited. So my dad took me to see, and there's a point to all of this. The Rams play the Washington Redskins at the LA Coliseum in 1974, which is a shitty

place to play a football game, but that's not what this is about. And the reason why that game was significant was that for the first time in the history of the NFL, the starting quarterback was black. And his name was James Harris, born in Louisiana to a minister father, Grambling State. And there was a general kind of unaccepted or accepted narrative. The quarterbacks in the NFL were white and were always going to be white.

And what it said to young people was the play caller, the smart guy, had to be white. And James Harris went on. He was the first black man to win a playoff game. And the Rams are back in the Super Bowl. So I ordered my son a Roman Gabriel jersey. I'm going to wear number 12, which was James Harris. My other son's going to do 99. But my win is James Harris, the first black quarterback to win a playoff game. And I think it was just a huge moment.

And it kind of reverses back to something we need today. The NFL has probably done the worst job, specifically the NFL owners, of footing players to coaches and owners. There are 660 coaches. There is a dearth of people of color coaches. Well, there's some lawsuits going on about that. 111 of them are relatives, which is like the same problem that curses us at elite universities, where because the majority of people who went to school were white in the 50s and 60s and 80s, the kids that are getting into the fantastic schools are also people not of color. But the Premier League's done a good job of hiring people of color. The NBA has actually done a really good job putting people of color in coaching positions.

But the NFL, whose ownership primarily is a bunch of white Republicans, has, shock or spoiler alert, done a really shitty job. But anyways, my win is James Harris, the first black person to start and win an NFL playoff game in 1974 for the Los Angeles Rams. Okay. Wow. That's a lot, Scott. That was a lot today. Well, let me just say, be better NFL.

That's what I say. By the way, that Eddie Murphy movie was The Distinguished Gentleman, just so you know. Good to know. You would not be The Distinguished Gentleman. Go watch it. It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. I love Eddie Murphy movies.

What do you think? The Dog, 2022? No. No? No. Go watch it. It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. I love Eddie Murphy movies. What do you think? The Dog, 2022? No. No? No. No? No. It could happen.

I would totally. It could happen. You know like Jeff Bezos' brother-in-law dropping a dime on him? You know, the sex, that kind of thing? I'm transparent. What is there to drop on me? I'd find some dime. I'd drop it.

I'd make it up. What is there to drop on me? Just because. Because then it would be kind of an interesting story. And then maybe Olivia Nutsy would write the whole thing. By the way, you'd get the Olivia Nutsy treatment that your friend Dr. Oz got, which I thought was fantastic. That's what would happen. I'd send her in to interview you.

You would throw me a party. You would raise money. You would help me. Totally help me. Absolutely not. No, yes, I probably would. Yes, you would. But not for Dr. Oz.

Anyway, we'll take a listener question. Thank you, Scott. That was very thoughtful, both of those things. We'll take a listener question in our next episode. And now there's a new way to reach us with your questions. You can call us at 855-51-PIVOT. Oh, my God. We have like a sex line.

We have our own number. Yes, we have our own number. It makes me vaguely uncomfortable. Are you lonely? Meet Hot Singles, 976 The Dog. No. Just submit your question.

855-51-PIVOT and keep it clean. As always, you can go to nymag.com slash pivot. That is the worst 976 line in history.

God. So, we'll pay you $4.99 to call and talk dirty to me. Jesus Christ. The link and the number is in our show notes. Keep it clean, people. And Scott, don't you call in that number.

Don't you dare call in and bother our nice staffers. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. And then next week in Miami. I'm so excited. It's so cold here. I hate it in this cold weather. I'm so sick of putting on my coat.

Today when I took the golden child to school, she's like, you're putting on your coat again? I said, yes, I hate it. And she goes, I hate it. It was fantastic. Anyway, Miami, next week in Miami. I'm so excited. I'm excited. All right.

Read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretodt engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Severio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. James Harris, number 12, we honor you at the Super Bowl. Right on, my brother.