Pivot - Rebellion in Russia, Titan Fallout, and Guest Jason Del Rey

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Breaking news: Kara Swisher will not referee the cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Also, SpaceX is looking to up its valuation, and Meta wants to shut down access to news in Canada. And this weekend’s insurrection in Russia revealed how unequipped social media is to cover breaking news. Plus, an investigation into the Titan submersible implosion may lead to new regulations. Will the same happen for space travel? Then we’re joined by Friend of Pivot, Jason Del Rey on the decades-long battle between Walmart and Amazon. You can find Jason on Twitter at @DelRey, and you can buy “Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets,” here. We’ve got some listener mail episodes coming your way soon, so send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm not in France.

What about you, Scott? Where are you now? I'm Scott Gowin. I'm back in London after stopping in Ibiza. Ibiza. How was Ibiza? I don't remember much. It involved DJs and mushroom chocolates.

But I heard it was lovely. I heard it was lovely. Oh, my goodness. You go to Ibiza. I, like, drag children home on flights across the world. We had to go to Zurich. We had to go to, flights across the world. We had to go to Zurich. We had to go to Newark. I had to pick up my car.

I have a much less exciting life than you. Yeah. I don't know how to respond to that, but it's the joy of parenting small children when you're 105. You asked for it. Yes, I asked for it. You got it. You asked for it. You got it.

But I miss Europe. We had a lovely time together, didn't we? That was nice. I did enjoy it. That was a so You asked for it. You got it. But I miss Europe. I miss, we had a lovely time together, didn't we? That was nice. I did enjoy spending time with you and my family. That was a sojourn for us, a European vacation. Let's do another. Where should we go next? We should have had a recommitment ceremony.

Isn't that what they call it? We should have. By the way, that is, what do they call it when people have the second commitment? What do they call it? Second wedding. Not a second wedding. They have a recommitment. A recommitment.

That is definitely a clear blue flame signal they're about to get divorced. You think? You think? Oh, my God. I always thought it was renovating the kitchen. I always thought renovating the kitchen was the sign. Yeah. No, it's – whenever I hear that friends are inviting all of their friends to a recommitment

ceremony, it means one of them either cheated or they've decided they're going to be divorced. So, let's have one. Let's see. Let's tempt fate. Well, we had one. Right, we did. This was it for us. That was it?

We had lunch. But wasn't it wonderful? Lunch is not a recommitment ceremony. I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was great. I thought we had a good time. It was a good conference. We saw a lot of people.

We chatted up with CMOs, which were advertisers for Vox. And we had a good time in general on our live event. I listened to it on the drive down in the middle of the night, and it was quite good. It was very good. Yeah, it wasn't bad, right?

No, we did very well. We had a nice audience and everything else, and we met lots of our fans, tons of our fans. So it was good. It was a nice trip. What should we do next year? Where should we go next year? I suggest we go to Cannes. I'm going to do the exact same thing every year.

I'm going to go to Cannes because people are nice to me and come up to me and say nice things. And then after this, they say, where's Cara? And then I'm going to go to Cannes because people are nice to me and come up to me and say nice things. And then after this, they say, where's Cara? And then I'm going to go to Ibiza. Can I come to Ibiza next time? You're always welcome to come anywhere I am. That would be something. But I don't think you'd enjoy it. Because of the chocolates and stuff?

It's mostly... Dancing in water. It's a lot of partying, good DJs. I don't know if you would enjoy Ibiza. I haven't been there that often. And usually when I go there, I stay in a villa at a very quiet part of town. But now because I'm going through this again, the next wave of my midlife crisis, I'm meeting a bunch of guys who are like me in this total arrested adolescence phase. total arrested adolescence phase. And we went to this amazing party on Thursday night by,

you know, shocker, some 50-something-year-old billionaire who spends a million bucks on a party. Yeah. But it's very kind of hippy-dippy. It's very granola. What billionaire was it? Oh, I don't want to out him. Okay. All right. And it's, but it's, I don't know if it's your vibe. No, I don't think, I never get invited to those things anyway. It doesn't matter. I think the vibe would be on the same part of the island

and you go for a four-hour lunch, but it's a really nice island. I've heard, I have lots of friends who go there. I just, it's not me. Anyway, today we have a lot to go on because a lot happened over the weekend while you were partying in Ibiza, the Wagner group mutiny against Vladimir Putin, for example,

as well as lessons learned from the Doom Titan expedition that happened while we were in Europe. Our friend of Pivot is journalist Jason Del Rey, who used to work for me. He's written a new book about how Amazon and Walmart have been fighting for your online retail dollars. Interesting book. I've read quite a bit of it, and it's quite good.

An area you like to talk about a lot in any way. But first, some news that is somehow not from a parallel AI universe. I do think we're in a simulation now. Scott, I will not be refereeing the cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. That would be hilarious. That's a great idea. I know.

Wouldn't that be good? And as the referee, you just hope that the floor and the fists win. Yes, exactly. I just let it go on. I would let it go on. Let him go at it. I'm like, oh, what? Uncle, sorry, I can't hear you.

What? I can't hear you. Oh? I can't hear you. Oh, did you lose your nose? I'm so sorry. Last week, Elon tweeted, he was out for a cage fight with Zuckerberg because he's arrested. Speaking of arrested adolescents, Zuckerberg posted a screenshot of a tweet saying, send me location, which Musk replied, Vegas octagon. They've been involved in a billionaire brat feud for years.

They've been involved in a billionaire brat feud for years. In 2016, Zuckerberg criticized Musk after SpaceX which seems to have gone sideways, he seems to be trying to be cool and relevant. Earlier this month, he also unveiled an upcoming Twitter competitor to employees, which is coming relatively soon. The whole thing is so stupid. I was texting Facebook people, and they didn't know if it was going to come off or not, which I think is bad for Mark, honestly. Mark is, I hate to say this, a better person in a lot of ways and would ruin Mark's reputation more than Elon's. What do you think? So I find this really fascinating. On a meta level, it just further is sort of another example of the decline of Western civilization in the sense that you have two individuals who are incredibly blessed. And when Jimmy Kimmel and Senator Ted Cruz have a bit of a beef and they do a one-on-one tournament and donate money to charity, I like that. I think that there's

something about physicality and competition in the name of trying to settle your scores in a thoughtful, aggressive, masculine, at the end of the day, it's about you're supposed to shake hands. And I think there's something to that. When two men just despite their blessings from what are probably pretty remarkably similar environments that made them incredibly wealthy, specifically the United States and investments in technology that they have free-rided or drafted off of. You would think they would make an effort to show some decorum. And there's nothing competitive or

fun about this. This is these guys don't like each other and they want to beat each other up. Right. Now I'll go to just looking at this more analytically. You have one guy is 6'2", I think he's 190, 200 pounds. He's a big guy. And then you have Zuckerberg, who is 5'7", 155 pounds. Mark is actually quite small, or he's a small person. But I think a lot about this stuff because I've been into physical fitness for a long time. I think the good money, should it happen, and it won't happen, and I'll come back to this, but the good

money would actually be on the Zuck because- He's been training. He's been training. With the top fighters. Well, not only that, he's actually a pretty accomplished, he's pretty accomplished in jujitsu right now. And in addition, he does something called MRF, named after Lieutenant Murphy, a SEAL who perished in Afghanistan. And it's 100 pull-ups. You run a mile, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 leg squats, and then you run another mile.

I trained for a year when I was 49 to do this and did it in about 53 minutes and couldn't walk for two or three days. He did it with a 20-pound pack in 39 minutes. Mark Zuckerberg, I don't like the man. No, he's more than fit. He's in crazy shape right now. In addition, what you don't realize when you're 52 is that your reflexes, your balance, your response time, your coordination all begin to atrophy. And the hard part is you anchor off of all of those things when you're in your late 30s,

because as humans, we didn't live past 30s or 40s. We have a tough time actually acknowledging the degradation in our physicality. And the reason this won't happen though, is because actually I think it's interesting, your thoughts on the Zuck has more reputational risk here. I actually think Elon will decide not to do it. My impression of Elon is that over the short term, he has a lack of impulse control. His prefrontal cortex has not developed and he makes very stupid impulsive decisions. I am going to buy

this social media network for $45 billion. They're smarter than me on this issue. They realize I'm overpaying. They get me to sign an airtight contract. And then about seven, 10, 30 days later, I realized how badly I fucked up. And I tried to do anything, including lying, intimidation to get out of it. He's a bully. You're describing a bully. But he is a long-term thinker. You got to admit, the guy has the ability to see. He's a visionary. He's very smart in terms of his thinking over the long term. What he will recognize over the long term is that the visual image of him in a cage, at least initially, them two standing next to each other, it's going to

look like a walrus is fighting an otter. He called himself a walrus. Right. But it's going to look, from a size standpoint, it's going to look like, you know, mush should kill him. And Zuckerberg would probably win because at 39 with his training and his speed and agility, he just needs to harass Musk until he runs out of steam. And those 52-year-old oxygen efficiencies, deficiencies start to kick in. Yeah, no. I have no question Zuckerberg would win. He's been training with top trainers and this and that. And he's committed that way. He's like that. He's so intense. He's such an intense person. Musk is just a lazy person. Musk looks like he runs out of breath on his way to Krispy Kreme. Yeah. Well, he doesn't even try to be fit. I've never heard him add another word,

exercise. Mark was always an exerciser. But to me, the bad part is Mark looks like an idiot if he does this. He looks like a dumbass. Because he's now in the bro troll school. It's too late. He's already done that, right? I guess. But if he got into a ring with him, if he got into a ring, the meme that would last millions of years would be Mark Zuckerberg taking down a person 40 pounds heavier than him. This is way more downside. Can I tell you what women think of this? What a bunch of assholes. How do these people rule the world, right? They should correctly query that question. Just like you're kidding me. Of course, interestingly, Louis had a friend of his over last night, Ben, and Ben was like, oh, can I get front row seats?

And I'm like, it totally appeals to men. And it completely does not appeal to women, like really. You bunch of tiny penises, like what are you doing? Well, men are more violent. Yeah, I know, but it's so stupid. And some of that violence can come in handy. I think you want some of that big dick energy when Russians come over the border in Ukraine. In this instance, it's nothing.

It's so dumb. It's stupid. It kind of feeds into this culture of dunking and cruelty. It's just very, it's very immature and very stupid. Yes. Anyway, moving on, something that is worth something, you're talking about long-term. SpaceX is reportedly looking to raise $750 million by selling insider shares. The sale would value the company at $150 billion, up from $137 billion valuation in January. Shares would sell at about $81 a piece, a jump from December valuation of $79. It's moving up. Not much, but moving up. Elon Musk said he would estimate SpaceX has spent around $2 billion on Starship Rocket,

which failed in its first test early this year and may spend another billion. It's a very expensive thing he's doing. That's a lot of money, $150 billion. Now, you've been always down on Galactic and the rest of them, but this one you're positive about, right? And then he said he couldn't speculate on a Starlink IPO. Starlink's been an important part of SpaceX, too. Thoughts? Right. So, first is the private markets are really robust. And one of the reasons it's kind of, this is a company that's worth more than the vast majority of public companies. And in the private markets are really robust. And one of the reasons it's kind of, this is a company that's worth more than the vast majority of public companies.

And in the private markets, when you can have this sort of visibility and raise money in this measured fashion and not be subject to the volatility and disclosure requirements and expenses and administrative complexity of the public markets, you know, this SpaceX, I think, is the most valuable,

or one of the most markets. You know, SpaceX, I think, is the most valuable, or one of the most valuable private companies in the world and the most traded in these secondary market platforms like Forge and others. And it's kind of a lesson in why it might be good to stay private as long as possible, because they can manage sort of the perception. The company only gets marked every six or 12 months when they raise money. But looking at space as a business, I trifurcate it. There's space exploration, there's space tourism, and there's space hauling. Space exploration is space execution.

Whoever goes to Mars should not be allowed to go because it means they're insane and willing to kill themselves. To sit in a container 30 feet below surface and slowly die a torturous death. So you'll not be doing it, in other words, correct? Go ahead. You shouldn't trust anyone that agrees to do that. That's just suicide. And then, I mean, it's 74 and beautiful here in London. It's minus 111 degrees on Mars right now.

And there's not enough oxygen to sustain you. That's just stupid. But there's space tourism, which was highlighted a few days ago, tragically, just how stupid that is. And an example of people having way too much money and a lack of regulation, that business will go away. We should not be sending people to the bottom of the ocean to look at the Titanic. We should not be sending people, tourists into space.

We'll get into that in a minute, so don't go too much into that. But the part of the business that makes a ton of sense and is an amazing business, he has space hauling. And that's what SpaceX is, in addition to space communication. So 150 billion, too much? I think that, let me put it this way, one of my predictions every year I make a prediction

or make a series of predictions, one of my predictions in November of last year was that by the end of 23, i probably got the timing wrong but i'll hold on to the prediction i'll just extend it a year that spacex would be worth more than tesla let me interject so i'm going to interrupt for a second as you've been talking for a bit um is i think this is a this is the kind of elon companies now it doesn't make money from what i understand yet because the costs are so high at creating these. And he's working on several different rockets, one that just blew up we just talked about.

And so it's an expensive thing to do, which is why under the quietude of private it's important to get to a point where he does own things. But there's no competitors. You're right. There's very few competitors. NASA is throwing in the towel and is using them now. The European Space Agency. Yeah. The Falcon Space Agency. Yeah. The Falcon Heavy Rocket is his iPhone.

I think the Falcon Heavy Rocket will go down in history as a more meaningful product than the Model Y or whatever the Tesla product is because he effectively has no competition. The Starlink technology is amazing. People who use it say it's incredible. It's slowly but surely starting to take over maritime GPS. It's being used on battlefields. But the Falcon Heavy rocket, his ability to get material into space for less money is a true innovation. And I think SpaceX will be the biggest IPO that year when it happens. Although everybody thinks the Starlink unit of it is the most important and it's worth about half of the current private worth of SpaceX. And so there's a possibility of spinning off Starlink, which has been useful to lots and lots of people. But he's going vertical.

He not only has this low over communication satellite driven infrastructure, but he's the only one that has the rockets to get this shit into space right now. I mean, SpaceX really is, as much as I hope the fists win in this fight, and I've always thought Tesla is massively overvalued, SpaceX is really an incredible company. And just from a strategic point of view, the moats around SpaceX are much deeper and broader than the moats around Tesla. Yeah, yeah. But he's got the two units. And so I think it's good Elon. This is good Elon. And we'll see what happens here. But it's certainly, Clico Public and Starlink might be spun off. Many people have talked about this, which is interesting. And again, another area that he's dominating and another area Zuckerberg tried to get into, but he has succeeded where Mark has not with his efforts to create low earth satellites for communications.

And Meta now, Meta on the other hand, is shutting down access to news in Canada after a country passed a law requiring platforms pay fees for news from domestic media outlets. The company says it intends to, quote, end the availability of news content in Canada permanently following the passage of the bill. Australia passed a similar law last year and Meta responded the same way but came to a deal eventually with the Australian government. Within a week, lawmakers in California have also advanced a bipartisan bill requiring platforms with over 50 million active U.S. users to compensate news outlets. Meta says it would remove news in the state if the law passes. These are going to be all over the place. Any quick thoughts on that? This isn't a good thing for Facebook to do.

Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Facebook will continue a pattern of being liars and full of shit. So they'll strike a deal. They will strike a deal. And this is absolutely what these, essentially all of these nations, Western nations, if you think about the pursuit of truth and a pillar of democracy, it's First Amendment, it's free speech, it's elections, it's free media, the veracity or media companies. Yeah, it's overdue. And now specifically on this, you pointed out the right analog, that's Australia.

They'll huff and they'll puff and they'll stamp their legs and then they'll agree to a deal. Yeah, they'll agree to a deal. We'll see. It's been going on for a while and we'll see if they do that, but they're going to face this all over the world, so they better come up with something. They'll have to pay on some level for the use of things. You know, it's interesting. I interviewed Martha Stewart here last Thursday, and one of the things she said is the argument she had with Time was they wanted to put all of Martha Stewart living for free. And she's like, what? What are you talking about? I'm worth something. You have to charge for good content. And one of the reasons she bought it back from them for $40 million was that.

She was like, I didn't even understand it then, and I don't understand it now. Like giving away valuable content, not every bit of content, but certainly stuff that's worth something to people. And it's still the same idea, the same question of what is worth something to pay for. And that's, you know, they've been getting it for free and then ruining the business, as you noted. So it's definitely something that's going to continue. I think eventually, including with AI, they need to be able to get together and negotiate with these big platforms. And it should be not illegal to do so on lots of issues, including publishing payments, including they hadn't been able to do that. That's why is they never they used to, you know, catch them all

by themselves in the Savannah and pick them off one by one with stupid money deals and this and that. So we'll see. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. Obviously, the big story of this week was Vladimir Putin recovering from the weekend insurrection by his former ally from the Wagner Group or a mutiny. Different people are using different things. They don't think it's over. The Wagner Group is the paramilitary organization that was helping him fight the war in Ukraine. He started off as a caterer, a friend of Putin's, became very wealthy. Now he's running all kinds of paramilitary stuff in Africa, all over the world, and was deployed in the Ukraine. Everyone is trying to figure out what this means to Putin's grasp on power. I've read so many stories about

this, and most people are like, this is the first chapter, as well as the war in Ukraine. There is a social media role, the Wagner Group itself, and then for the coverage of the entire situation, the Wagner Group chief, Yegivny Prigozhin. He uses the messaging app Telegram, where he has more than 600,000 followers. He uses it quite a bit to communicate. He just did a little while ago. That's where he was announcing his every move as the rebellion unfolded. He said he was just now he said he was pointing out security problems in Russia that he was able to get so close to Moscow with his little troop of people. He also used it to accuse political rivals of corruption. master of social media manipulation. He admitted to founding the Internet Research Agency, very famous, terrible thing, the troll farm that the U.S. sanctioned for 2016 election interference. The Wagner Group, again, is known from recruiting from Russian prisons. But they've also posted jobs

on Facebook and Twitter. So let's start. What do you think? We're not experts. We're not going to do the tech pro thing by talking about things. We're going to talk about stuff we know. This all played out on all the social media sites and everything else, and we'll get to the misinformation in a minute. But how do you look at what happened here and this guy's use of social media and his obvious expertise in it? Totally blown away by this, enraptured by it. I've been staring at my phone trying to understand this. The notion that you have a mercenary army marching one way, and then Yevgeny Prigozhin, who spent 10 years in prison, was then a caterer, high-end restaurateur who became friends with Putin

and started playing larger and larger roles and then has this army for hire, would then flip around, reverse direction, and threaten to march on Moscow. And then the absolute most decimating thing in terms of loosening Putin's grip on power was that when they showed up in Rostov-onandana, they were welcomed, which is just striking. That was. That was striking. Not just welcomed, they were cheered. So the thought that, I mean, this has been literally overnight, Putin has become sort of more from arguably one of the most powerful people in the world to a total paper bear. And it's just amazing how fast this appears to be unraveling. Now, a lot of it we don't

actually know what's going on, but I've just never, I don't think any analyst saw anything like this coming. Well, you know, there were some reports that U.S. intelligence did have some idea that this guy was going to continue to escalate. I don't think anyone thought he would actually march. He just would yell on social media, which is what he was doing a lot of. He was yelling. He was defending his troops. He used as the reason he did it is because he said the Russian defense ministry attacked his troops from behind.

And that was there wasn't proof of that again. But he that was his the incident, he said, set it off. And so he was trying to teach him a thing or two. He certainly did, because a lot of what happens in Russia is a perception game and how people look strong rather than are strong. And this guy uses social media, which is very popular in Russia, to do so. Even though he himself, let me just be clear, to vote for either of them or to pick either of them is picking, shall we have the murderous thug or the murderous thug, right? I mean, it's not like this guy is any cleaner, but he does have a more appealing social media presence and uses it quite heavily. And that's what's interesting and has gained enormous fan base online, especially since he's talking about corruption, which is endemic to the country.

Well, if you look at this as a battle between state-controlled media and social media, social media has won. And the perception of Prigozhin right now, I mean, his star, he's now one of the three people probably in the running for, you know, Times Person of the Year. Or unless Putin kills him. Here, you know, here's a lovely office with a window, you know. Even if he kills him. Basically, Putin has gone from this bulwark. I mean, there's so many second order effects here, not the least of which is China kind of doubled down on Russia.

You're going to see China start to withdraw from Russia because all of a sudden they're like, we backed a loser. We thought this was a bulwark, a great example of someone not afraid or unafraid of America. Someone who is showing the ability to punch back, was taken seriously, was retaking or asserting not only their strength politically and internationally and economically, but actually invading neighbors and retaking land despite resistance from the West. And now China's like, we bet on the wrong cowboy. This guy, his own people might kill him. I mean, you're talking about, a lot of people would argue that Russia isn't even really a government or a society. It's a series of criminal gangs who are loosely

strung together to sort of molest and exploit the economy and people and their resources there. And then a new set of criminals kind of come in. Although this criminal is pointing out the other criminals, geriatric nature, the kleptocracy. He's very populist. He's like, look, you're all meat for these rich people. Using social media. Yeah. And he's been feeding meat to these rich people, by the way.

This guy has seen it up close and personal. And so he's really playing into that idea of, you know, you're killing most of Russia for the advantage of the elites. So playing the elites versus the thing, and he does it masterfully. If you watch him on social media, I got to say, this guy's very gifted. Obviously, he ran the internet research group, so you know a thing or two about the manipulation of media. One of the things this whole incident revealed is how unequipped social media, of course, is covering breaking news. Misinformation ran rampant over the weekend. Telegram posts made their way to the English-speaking world via Twitter, and neither platform had any content moderation I could see.

One BBC journalist tweeted, it's probably not good that during a major breaking news event, the ongoing Wagner mutiny in Russia, the majority of viral false and misleading claims from accounts from Twitter. Blue's subscription, whose posts are promoted by Twitter's algorithms. And rather than point his followers to reliable sources of information on the subject, Elon endorsed tweets from Mario Noffel, a crypto guy who hosts, quote, Twitter's largest spaces. And of course, the bros had a way in because we just need to know what the tech bros think of what's happening in Russia. We already know it's unreliable, but the ability to use these platforms for confusion and propaganda is so massive now. It never gets fixed. This never has gotten fixed, but now it's sort of out of control. But I had one of those moments, Twitter has kind of been my go-to for breaking news.

And you know what was interesting? I found over the weekend, I had trouble getting what I felt was reliable, updated broadcast news from the BBC or CNN. I found they were just very slow and flat-footed. And some of that might have been, they're like, look, all of these sources are bullshit and we can't verify them. So they might have just been waiting, which is what they're supposed to do. But I had such this thirst that wasn't sated over the weekend. I went on Twitter. I found Twitter so noisy, so weird, I just couldn't discern anything. You know where I ended up?

Newspapers, so did I, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN. Actually, no, I ended up somewhere else. I ended up on TikTok. Oh, interesting. I ended up on TikTok watching 61 and three minute videos from people who are pretty credible in geopolitics. And I found that the best source of information for what I was looking for immediately and the

algorithm, you know what, the algorithm, it was so funny. It was like the algorithm figured out I was looking for it. Started serving up all these former people who served in the defense department saying this is what they think is going on, former heads of, you know, Russia experts. And it just struck me, wow, it's gone from the evolution for me in terms of my go-tos has gone CNN, Twitter, and now TikTok. Yeah, I didn't use Twitter at all. It was useless, except for a couple of people I follow who I think are smart. I found individual people. There were some good Twitter spaces. There were good, I got to give it to them. There were some good Twitter spaces. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, but it's just like books on the library floor. Like I just was like, I don't have time for this.

And I immediately went to- Books on the library floor. Jesus, you're poetic. Is that a haiku? No, it's just like, you know, you're like, where's the information? I don't have time for this bullshit. And so I found individual people. I used a lot of regular news sources, the Post, found individual people. I used a lot of regular news sources, the Post, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc. And then I did watch what they were saying, what Prokofiev was saying himself. Right now, the reason he said, he's still defiant, by the way, he's resurfaced again. And he said, mercenaries were going to operate from Belarus, his own army. And he didn't want, what was happening, and this is something that was interesting, was the militia was being subsumed into the Russian military. And he

didn't want that to happen. But he said he rebelled to fight the absorption, which was they were trying to quiet him for a long time because he was complaining. And so that's what they were trying to take power away from him. So they're going to be back in Belarus, which of course is an ally of Putin's, the guy who runs Belarus. The whole thing, this guy plays social media beautifully, I have to say, even though he's a terrible thug, murderous thug. But we'll see what happens. But finding information, that's interesting. Twitter used TikTok. Wow. I went right to newspapers. I was like, that's enough. I can't, I can't, I can't. And I did Molly Jong Fast. Is that her name? I really like her, by the way. I don't know her, but she was very generous to me. She heard I was looking for information and she sent me a link to a Twitter space that's being held by the Brookings Institution. And I listened to it and it was really, it was really good. But it does feel, I mean, these crises are a tectonic shift where the media deck is thrown up in the air and you don't know where it's going to land in terms of consumption. And I'm not sure, but I think this moment belongs to TikTok and then validated by fact-checked reporting at the newspapers and institutions you're talking about. And CNN did a very good job, too. I have to say they were doing a pretty good job.

You know, I immediately wanted to hear what Fareed Zakaria had to say, because I find he's very measured. He has an ability to kind of step out of the moment. I think what's really interesting is because of the noise level and everybody sort of communicating in different ways, nobody quite knows what to do. So it's a very confusing media moment. You know, I was like, this is terrible. Is it? What? Huh? And I think people still don't know. You have even people like Blinken going, well, chapter one, like, you know, that kind of thing. We'll see. We'll see. But they were very disciplined. The Biden administration didn't say anything. They were very disciplined. Can you imagine Trump during this? Yeah, he would have been like, go Putin. Or I like the other guy. Like, who Yeah, he would have been like, go Putin. I like the other guy.

Like, who knows what he would have said. He thinks everything is a wrestling match. So it's interesting to see what's happening. I certainly didn't listen to the tech pros on this one. Anyway, it's an interesting thing and it's still ongoing. And it looks like this is not going to stop. And people are trying to do the metaphorical akinz. It's sort of like, what's the group, Blackwater, deciding to march on Washington with its mercenary group? Or the Coast Guard or the Navy or Northrop Grumman, who fights for us, who we pay a lot of money to, saying, no, we're pissed off.

We think you're incompetent. And they start marching towards Washington. Yeah. Well, we did have an insurrection. Hey, hey, we're good at this. This is a 50,000-person armed gang mercenary force turning around and marching on Moscow potentially. And then Putin, who accuses him of treason, cuts a deal because he realized he's fucked. At least that's what we know. And the intermediary, Lukashenko from Belarus, is someone he doesn't like who he was forced to bring in. At every turn here from day one, from day one, at every turn, Putin appears more and more flaccid.

I mean, it's just striking. Yeah, it's true. He is so substantially weakened. And a lot of this was a giant facade that there is literally the emperor has no clothes here. He called it a march for justice because they were trying to break up the Wagner group. Anyway, he was quite defiant. But bringing it back, like you said,

we're trying to stay in our lane. The other big winner here in terms of tech is absolutely Telegram. Yeah, Telegram. Yeah, it's got that inside credibility, you know, kind of street cred. They're there. They're there.

I don't know how much is credible. It's being used as propaganda. But yes, we don't know what's going to happen. But we are listening to the experts and we suggest you do, too. But it's certainly perceptually. And us. And us. And us.

We can look at it from a social media perspective. He looks weak. This guy is using social media to make Putin look weak. And it's working, it seems like. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back, what the Ocean Gate tragedy means for the future of space tourism. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Jason Del Rey, about the decades long battle between Walmart and Amazon.

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Let's talk about the U.S. Coast Guard is leading the international investigation into the Titan submersible implosion. We haven't talked a lot about this. It was sort of a huge news story. Recommendations could include new regulations or criminal charges. travel. UBS estimates that the industry will be worth $3 billion by 2030 after costing $29 billion, I'm sure. The big players here are, of course, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic plans to launch its first official commercial flight this week to offer monthly space tourism flights later in the summer. Do you think the bad press will affect their bottom line? Scott, you've always said space wants to kill us, but note that so far private space travel hasn't experienced a disaster on the same scale as the Titan submersible. In fact, submersibles haven't until this one. The only fatality so far occurred in 2014 when one Virgin Galactic pilot was killed and another

was injured during a test flight of Spaceship Two. In terms of regulation, the FAA isn't allowed to regulate private space travel right now, thanks to the so-called learning period set by Congress. That ends in October. How involved do you think the government should be in regulating these startup industries and any lessons that you can see? Well, first off, I would push back a little bit. I think there's a lot of evidence that space travel is still very dangerous. It's got a 2% mortality rate. Base jumping has something like a point. You would be stupid to opt for space travel over base jumping. That's how dangerous this is. And when you don't have regulation, and the reason that Titan was dropped from a Canadian vessel in international waters, there was no regulation. And what we're finding out is that regulation matters. And I'm conflicted because I think people should have the right to kill themselves.

But at the same time, if it's going to potentially cost taxpayers tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, then regulation should play a role here. And that is, we don't want to have to come save your dumb, rich ass. This also brings up a lot of philosophical questions, and that is, we just don't need, we don't want to have to come save your dumb rich ass. This also brings up a lot of philosophical questions. And that is the amount of coverage this has received versus the migrants who die trying to get across these bodies of water in much less romantic fashion. So, this whole thing and then a bunch of people warning about the physics of it. I think a lot of people are rethinking, is this why I'm rich? If you're the husband of a woman, if you're a private equity billionaire, and as a gift, you gave your

22-year-old daughter a $400,000 ticket on Virgin Galactic. I mean, they've already had someone die. They had a test pilot die. That person probably had a wife and kids. Right. I think one of the things is that this guy went down, and obviously, a lot of people, including James Cameron, who's been a very active in the submersible and deep sea diving, they all knew it was a problem. This, this carbon fiber haul, I know more about carbon fiber hauls, but they all were like this. We had warned them and warned them and warned them again. And this guy was like, you know, I'm going to be the Elon of submersibles. I'm going to make it cheaper. And they were like, there's no way physics can make it cheaper. And he was like, that's what people told Elon. You know, the same,

they brought Elon, he brought Elon's name up quite a bit with him. And they were like, I don't care what you do. Physics is physics. And that's going to, what happened was implode because of the huge pressures. And I think the same thing here is who's testing these things for safety? Why aren't they, why don't they have to be a third party? A third party should be looking at this stuff, even if it slows down innovation, if you're going to sell it to regular people, you know what I mean?

Like if it's all these people who want to do it themselves, spend their money, want to kill themselves, that's their business. But when they're starting to make a business out of it, it's like selling tainted meat. Like we don't know if it's clean or not. And that's really,

that to me is the part when they cross over into making it travel for consumers, they need to have safety rules. And fuck you on innovation. Go innovate yourself. Go do it yourself

till it's absolutely 100% safe, which it wasn't, obviously. Well, it's a manifestation of this move fast and break things. And I have total disdain for regulation. And the individual, the CEO of the company, is on record as saying the reason why he doesn't have Navy commanders captaining these vessels is he said, literally, 55-year-old white guys are not innovative. So, he didn't want people who

are trained, who actually have spent time underwater thousands of feet to command these vessels. This is just a manifestation of this arrogance. I mean, and quite frankly, when I heard about this, Cara, I was a little bit relieved when I found out it was a massive implosion, because I had, I don't know if you have this, sometimes I get fixated on something and it bothers me and I have trouble sleeping. Yeah, I'm sitting while you were sleeping that's what i did percent you know i think one of the issues is the coverage you just mentioned it really briefly do you think it could have been less coverage it's still it was quite a riveting story i don't quite know how it could have been less it was so riveting you can't it's like you can scream at instinct but it's not going

to listen and our instincts are we are drawn to stories about rich people and this type of, this had everything for a great story, right? It was really wealthy people, new technology, the Titanic. It's just a drama. Are they down there? The search is on. So you can wave your finger at media and say, all right, we should be covering maritime deaths among migrants. I get it. And we should think about that philosophically, what that means in terms of how we value one life versus the other.

But at the end of the day, the media is going to cover what's going to get attention. And this was a riveting story. I was riveted by it. You're right. The Titanic part of it. Titanic always rips people's attention right to itself, which was, you know, that is a story of technology and arrogance too, as Cameron noted. And again, 110 years later, arrogance and the Titanic claim more lives. If you're bringing people in and selling as a business, you better be 100% sure. It's,

you know, accidents do happen, obviously, but this seemed like you could see it coming. If you talk to all the experts, they did see it coming. If you talk to all the experts, they did see it coming. So these things should be regulated. The safety of anything you're using to transport people and sell tickets to, you can't be unsafe in this way. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Jason Del Rey is a longtime tech and business journalist. In fact, he worked for me for a long time. He joins us today to talk about his new book, Winner Sells All, Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets. Jason, you were covering that for Recode and then All Things D and then

Recode for many years. This is what you started covering. You've been covering it for a very long time. But you call this rivalry, quote, the defining business clash of this generation, at least in e-commerce. Two biggest companies by revenue in the United States and the two largest private sector employees. Big, important companies. But Amazon's market cap is over three times bigger than Walmart's, $1.3 trillion to $400 billion, respectively. So talk about the winner. It seems like Amazon has won here, but talk a little bit about your premise for putting these two together.

Sure. There's been some great books that have looked at Amazon, mostly in a vacuum, you know, Brad Stone's two great books. But you learn so much about these companies when you explore the rivalry because you learn about ambition and motivations of the two. And I really learned over the years that they've been really intertwined. Obviously, at different points in their histories, Amazon is considered Walmart more of a competitor than it does now. But Walmart, you know, in recent years really has just talked about Amazon internally every single day and trying to, you mentioned the market caps, trying to develop into a more modern business that has different revenue streams.

Scott would talk about the Rundle, develop a Rundle. And so, you know, I really, if you want to know where these two companies are going, my take is you have to look at how each has influenced the other. And I think they have in a variety of ways. Okay. One of the things for people who don't realize, Walmart, for many years, I covered Walmart as a retail reporter for The Washington Post. This was back in the 1990s, I guess, or 1980s, too. And Walmart at the time was the Amazon of retail, right? It came into communities.

It killed off downtowns. It used technology rather effectively. was the Amazon of retail, right? It came into communities, it killed off downtowns, it used technology rather effectively. That was one of its biggest advantages is understanding data and using it. So they had a chance to stop it. They had all the pieces, they were everywhere, they had the data, they had the information, they had the power. So talk about that. Yeah. So when I used to think about the history of Walmart, I just assumed that they kind of just missed it back in the 90s. They weren't paying attention. But it turns out, I learned in reporting this book, they actually had a really smart team working on e-commerce in the mid-90s. And one guy in particular, this guy named Robert Davis,

I found through my reporting, and he never talked about this before this book, but he basically said he really was just looking for a little bit more of a commitment from Walmart's CEO that they saw Amazon coming. They felt like they had all the pieces. He just needed the warehousing team and the trucking team to not laugh at him when he asked them for a big request. And Walmart CEO at the time, a guy named David Glass, you know, smart in a lot of ways, said like, this is going to be the size of a Sam's Club, which is obviously owned by Walmart and maybe one Sam's Club's worth of annual sales. And so Davis, like a couple of other Walmart leaders, he ends up saying, okay, well, I'm going to go to the Pacific Northwest. I'm going to go work for Amazon.

And he and a bunch of former Walmart staff end up playing a pretty key role in that first decade of growth when really Walmart did have a chance to snuff out this company before they even got rolling. Scott? Jason, good to see you. Hi, Scott. Yeah. Cara, did you know Jason and I are good, good friends? No, I didn't know that. Yeah, he doesn't know that either, but we're going to be. Scott, it's been too long. It has been too long. So my sense of, and I come at this as someone I'm interested every year where my kids, when I say my kids, my students go to work. And it used to be all Amazon. And occasionally, and then all of a sudden, Walmart started picking off a few. You would hear a kid go, oh, I'm going to Walmart. But it still doesn't have the ability

to attract the same type of human capital as Amazon, doesn't it? I mean, at the end of the day, isn't it about who can attract the best and brightest? And who do you think is winning that war? I think you're right. I think it's still Amazon. But I will say, I think in the last couple of years, Walmart has made up a little bit of ground. They've hired a couple people in some of their new business lines with deep Amazon expertise. A guy named Seth Dallaire who ran the advertising business. Is that Amazon Media Group?

Is that the guy doing media now for the chief revenue officer of Walmart? Correct. So he's now running Walmart Plus, but also their ad business. I'm blanking on a few. They now have a guy. By the way, he's a former Stern grad, just so you know. Former NYU Stern grad. Anyways, sorry.

Go ahead, please. You taught him everything he knows. There you go. Thank you. So they are getting better. And the most interesting thing to me is they're building this $350 million campus in Bentonville. And I've talked to some Walmart execs, long timers who have left recently who said like, I understand why they're doing it, trying to attract a different talent set. But like, that is not our DNA. Actually having windows in the office, no.

We have to work in the dark and we have to prove to vendors that we are frugal. And so I'm really interested. That's just starting to open over the next couple of years. I am interested what that does talent-wise. I will say Bentonville is kind of a pretty beautiful place. I mean, I ate at some great restaurants there last year when I went to interview the CEO. Has a super modern museum. The Walton family. That's the Walton family. But they did it because they realized that young single people, do you realize that town used to be dry? I mean, until recently. And the family realized we can't get young, talented people

down here without cool bars and cool, some sort of reasonable lifestyle. So to your point, I think there still is a talent disparity, but I think they've done a pretty good job in recent years. And we'll see what the new campus does. But one of the things is the cultures of the companies. Walmart used to be seen as super tough, right? Super tough and frugal. And Amazon is not known as a pleasant place to work either, probably less so than Walmart. But one of the things that's interesting

is you just mentioned the CEO, the current CEO, Doug, you spent some time with him, Doug McMillan there, who I've interviewed many times, really terrific guy to interview. He's really interesting and he's willing to learn for sure. And one of the things he said to me that really struck me many years ago in an interview was maybe, and no one paid attention things he said to me that really struck me many years ago in an interview was maybe, and no one paid attention, he said, I was talking about the box store, which was the sort of their big innovation, the big box, 100,000 square foot stores. He goes, maybe we won't have those. No one paid attention. I was like, what? Like when he said that, you know, maybe we'll have smaller stores and people pick and then they do it online, which to me was a sacrilege to

everything that came before him. He's not as well known, but I've always found him to be kind of a learning organism. Talk a little bit about him. He started off in the produce aisle, right? Is that correct? Yeah. Well, in high school, so he moved to Bentonville, I think, in high school and started in the warehouse as an intern and then quickly found his way. I think his first job may have been either the candy section as a manager merchandising or tackle. And just, I've been told that pretty early on, they identified him as a potential big future leader. And some people who were ambitious at the company and wanted that CEO

role, they saw once they put him in CEO of international role, then they moved him to Sam's Club, like the Walton family was developing him. And he's really interesting, because they look at him as sort of he is a bridge between a couple of generations. He has the Walmart DNA, but was was in his, I believe, his early 40s or mid 40s when he became CEO. And so a little more digital savvy. You know, he talks about an early adopter and he's been there now nine years as CEO.

Recently, there was some good reporting that he'll probably stay on a few more years. And I think that's because when I met with him, he was happy about some of the transformation, but he was like, man, we still just do not move fast enough. And they made some mistakes, some of his purchases. Talk about those.

Yeah. I mean, a big one in my book is now a seven-year-old deal, which I think it depends how you look at success. Is this Jet? Are you going to say Jet? success. Is this Jet? Are you going to say Jet? It was the Jet acquisition or the Aquahire. Aquahire or Mark Lurie, now the owner. See, Kara, Jason and I finished each other's sentences. I see that. I can see your relationship is developing in real time. Go ahead, Jason. I mean, it's a long, long festering friendship. The Jet deal, listen, I think it did help change the narrative of the company in the digital world, at least. I think prior, they were kind of a complete laughing stock and their metabolism did speed up. But if you want to look at some of the actual execution of acquisitions that that team did, we're talking about digital brands like Bonobos and other

fashion brands. They ended up selling all all those off. But in any event, you know, yes, it has not all been pretty. They've lost out some big acquisitions to Amazon. We can talk about healthcare. Yeah, let's talk about healthcare. Yeah, Walmart wanted this company called PillPack, an online pharmacy. I have a whole chapter about healthcare in the book and that fight. And they've lost, you know, maybe more than they've won in the digital space. But Doug is, you know, he's a big champion of the company and people really believe in him. And even folks who've left the company under not great conditions will say he's been a great champion for the company and helped transform them more than the past few CEOs,

at least. Scott? Who do you think has the wind at their back, the wind in their face, between the two organizations and the challenges they face right now? I think Amazon is absolutely at an inflection point, not just with the transition in the last two years to Andy Jassy, but the cost-cutting, the pullback on some investments, having a really challenging time in the physical retail space where I think some executives thought they would walk in and just be

the smartest men and women in the room and just figure it out. I think they have a lot of challenges ahead of them. That said, Prime is really sticky. No matter what happens with this FTC case, Prime is really sticky. And so they're tough. But I will say Walmart, the whole idea of being omni-channel, of really having customers be able to return wherever they want, pick up wherever they want, get delivery, get pickup, they're doing it pretty well right now. I'm just still skeptical about the long-term execution in digital for them. I think they've gotten a lot better. For Walmart. For Walmart. For Walmart, yeah. But where's Amazon's

negatives? I mean, there was rumors of Bezos having to come back, this FTC case that you just mentioned, which was allegedly tricking people to sign up for Amazon Prime. You've obviously got other government investigations going on. Yeah. Where are they vulnerable? Listen, I think they haven't learned, you know, one thing I mentioned in the book, Walmart, you know, in its history kind of went on a listening tour of their critics, like tried to at least pretend to take their critics seriously, both environmental, regulatory, journalistic critics. And Amazon, you know, the lack of self-awareness at the top of the company,

the arrogance dealing with DC, I think potentially will one day impact them negatively in a really big way. I think it has already. But I think physical retail for them, they're trying their own bookstores, that failed. Trying their own grocery stores, Amazon Fresh, that's kind of failed. I think they'll keep at it. Whole Foods, which was Scott's big, amazing guess. I don't know. You tell me about the Whole Foods experience. Unless you like swiping your palms, which maybe some people do, I don't think it's a better experience today than it was before they bought it. And a lot of people would say it's worse. I would agree.

But looking forward, healthcare, I think both companies are making big bets there. I think the Walton family absolutely wants them to be a big player. I think they can do a lot in terms of accessibility in large swaths of this country with their Walmart clinics. They're essentially super centers of healthcare. Can they keep focus there? And can they keep talent? They've churned through, I think, nine or 10 healthcare leaders at Walmart in the past decade. And so as one of their executives told me, Walmart's biggest barrier to succeeding in healthcare is themselves. But Amazon, how are they doing? So in healthcare, they made the big one medical acquisition, which is essentially, I don't

know if either of you are members of one. I use it. I love it. Patients? Love it. Okay. Love it. Okay.

So that's a big deal. Their other attempts have not worked yet. They had Amazon Care internally, but instead they went out like they can do and spend $4 billion to correct that mistake. The pharmacy space, will people trust them and move their pharmacy spending to Amazon? They've been trying for a couple years. They made the PillPack deal. I think they'll keep at it. I think they're going to succeed in the space at some point, whether it's four or five years

from now or 10. I think we'll be talking about both of them in this space, and I hope for the better. I mean, I hope it's because they've either made things more accessible or brought prices down, but they both know how unwelcoming the industry is to newcomers and non-incumbents. Talk a little bit about their forays into media. I mean, Amazon Prime Video, I think, is mostly considered a success because it's part, it's another reason not to cancel Prime, but Walmart has tried. They have Vudu. I think you would argue that's been less successful. They

just don't have, it appears, the DNA for media or the cheap capital. But they're both, I mean, there's sort of the B2B media side, which is hugely lucrative for both of them, especially Amazon, Amazon, you know, the Amazon media group and then what they're trying to do at Walmart, but talk on the consumer side about their forays into media. Yeah. So, so video at Amazon, obviously like the big reason for it historically was to try to make prime more sticky. And I think in that way, it's been successful, although they've spent so much damn money that it often looks like an ego project too. And I think for Bezos was, and you know, for many years, Walmart, yeah, they sold off Voodoo. They had another, you know, joint venture

company. Most people probably haven't heard of called Echo EKO that was doing sort of interactive commerce video. One thing, one thing I, you know, on the Walmart side, you know, they were rumored to be, and they had announced they were going to invest in TikTok years ago when, when Trump was still president right before the election. A lot of people thought that sounded absurd. I don't know. Like, I was excited about the idea, at least for Walmart, you know, for once not chasing Amazon from behind and looking ahead to social commerce and live video commerce, which we know is huge in Asia, but just has not yet caught on here. I still look at that TikTok and Walmart, and I know there's a lot there, geopolitical, but I can't help but think that there might be something there depending on the outcome of TikTok and whether they have to sell. It would be good for TikTok to affiliate with an American company like that. And there's no more American. We'll see how Bentonville feels about that relationship. But they were serious about it three years ago. And so I wouldn't rule it out. No prediction like Scott,

but that's as close as I'll get. I'm going to make you make a prediction. Does Jeff Bezos have to come back to Amazon or does he enjoy his yacht in the French Riviera? I mean, he's become, as some people say, an Instagram husband now, just taking photos of his new wife. Oh, that was worth it. The whole interview was worth it just for that. I don't see him coming back. I mean, I guess that would be a provocative call, so maybe I should make it. But I think Jassy is, I think there's still a lot of faith in him inside that building. But we'll see. We'll see. It feels like clock's ticking already. I found that Doug is literally impossible not to like and be impressed by. I mean, he was one of the most subtly, quietly, impressive leaders I have met.

And not going through a midlife crisis, married for 30 years, got his MBA at Tulsa. No yacht with his girlfriend on the front. Started loading pallets, straightforward shooter. Yeah, he's something out of central casting for your guy you want running the largest employer.

My story, when I was down there, he was spending some time with me, and he immediately, all their associates were down there, and it's all these 60 and 70-year-old somethings. And he went down the line and spent two hours shaking everyone's hand and asking them questions. No, he's pretty, he's, he's, uh, everyone will say he's an unbelievable leader. He's, he is hard not to like, uh, and, and actually in our interview, I had just recently learned his dad passed, um, during, uh, the pandemic, not from COVID from a quick battle with cancer. And, um, I asked him about lessons from his dad and, you know, he immediately, I think I asked him about lessons from his dad, and he immediately, I think I caught him off guard a little bit, immediately welled up. Hard to fake that, and then gave a really thoughtful response on what he learned from his dad's life of service.

Yeah, I mean, in terms of, if you can, I say in the book, if you wanted to artificially concoct a great ambassador for that company, I mean, it's hard to do better than Dougie Bell. Yeah, and they're also not facing the same sort of, Walmart was evil for a long time, right? And now it's Amazon with unions and everything else. Is that, to me, I'm sorry, one last question. Is that going to be the big problem there with Amazon unions and Walmart sort of been through that ringer? I would have said two years ago that I, you know, a year ago that I thought unions were, you know, they had a lot of momentum, less momentum now, but the teamsters are still going at them. You know, I report that Jassy inside of Amazon, he's really been annoyed that Walmart is no longer getting any scrutiny. And his executives, you know, had to say to him, like, their day's gone. It's us now.

Like, we just need to deal with this. And so, I think it's not going away. And Walmart, for a variety of reasons, just does not have that issue right now to, you know, to hold them back. Yeah, 100%. Well, Jason, I recommend everybody read it. Jason was a wonderful, speaking of lovely guys, wonderful reporter, wonderful person to work with for many, many years. And you should read his book, Winner Sells All, Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets. Thank you, Jason. Thanks, Cara. And Scott, my best friend.

All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month at Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. But before we start, a correction from listener Peter Mumford.

Scott, it was a peregrine falcon you saw at the Swanky Hotel that was going after seagulls. Hawks don't hunt that way. Look up falconry. Peter Mumford is schooling you. You got the wrong bird, my friend. Didn't I say peregrine? I didn't say peregrine. No, you said hawk.

I said hawk. Hawk. Let me just say, they weren't there, so it didn't matter. There was ceramic owls. So, it didn't really matter. The disappointment was huge with my children who I had gotten excited. Anyway, wins and fails, very quick, very quick. So, my fails are all these people on the far right and these libertarians who are, as far as I can tell, are just far right but also don't want to pay taxes, all their Neville Chamberlain-like apologist behavior around Putin and positioning him as a powerful reality that we have to deal with and admiring his strength

and admiring his masculinity and constantly making excuses for why we should enter into negotiations with Russia and acknowledge the reality of the situation and that they should, you know, we should give up Crimea, we should settle this, defer to the expansionary reality of Russia. And the reality is they couldn't have been more wrong, that this was an individual who was overextended. This is a murderous autocrat who has learned that when we bind together, when we're resolute, that the West should not be trifled with, and that these individuals could not have been geopolitically more wrong about Putin's power. And this guy is a paper bear. And they were fooled by this propaganda. They were fooled by this misinformation. And fortunately, no one that had any power to decide

about munitions or support, the US has donated more money or provided more capital than every other nation combined. And it was absolutely the right thing to do. And this is a wonderful moment at the West. This is a wonderful moment at the West. This is a wonderful moment for the West. And fortunately, the leaders in the West did not listen to a word of this trach coming out of some of these tech bros and far right wingers' mouths. This is a huge victory for the West because we realized that we should push back on a murderous autocrat and not appease this kind of behavior. Anyways, that's my loss is these individuals who were fooled by his false power. My win is I just wanted to bring up while everyone's talking about this cage match,

we brought up this Murph challenge. And I just wanted to acknowledge that the Murph challenge, it was a really nice moment at CrossFit every year we used to do or try and do Murph. And it's meant to honor a fallen hero, a guy named Michael Murphy, who was, after graduating from Penn State, had several opportunities to go to law school and instead decided to join the Navy SEALs. He was accepted. He was in the United States Merchant Marine Academy, and he ended up in Afghanistan. And there was actually a movie made about his encounter. They encountered some goat herders. They decided to let them go. They ended up surrounded by Taliban in an effort to reestablish communications. He put his own life at risk and he was shot and killed. But this Murph challenge that everyone's talking about with Mark Zuckerberg is actually

named after this fallen hero. Anyways, I just wanted to bring up a win, and that is Lieutenant Murph Mikey, the protector who was a Navy SEAL and gave his life fighting for his country in Afghanistan. That is when people talk about Murph, that's who they're referring to. They are.

My fail was I think you'll like this one. Spotify had dumped Meghan and Harry, and now it looks like Netflix is unlikely to renew their $100 million deal. Very good story and metaphor, they should have called it that, called Hollywood is leaving podcasting to podcasters. There's a quote from Jeremy Zimmer at UTA, United Talents Agency, where I am signed, where the head of parts, especially Spotify and Netflix, to just sign these things up without, you know, especially in the podcast space, signing up with famous people. It's worked in some cases. My friend Sean Hayes has a great show with a group of his friends and stuff like that. But in general, professional podcasters have really shown that they really know

how to create safe products and good products for Joe Rogan aside, who I think is also very successful, I think he's a natural podcaster, but these prices are back to normalcy, which is probably good for everybody in the space. And so that's a fail and in many ways a win. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Well, we can just acknowledge finally some truths. And that is one, crypto is a levered Ponzi scheme. Two, headsets don't work. And three, Megan and Harry are talentless fox. So those are some basic truths. So I agree with you. Those are the three pillars of truth in technology and media over the last 12 months. I'm glad to see

you coming around. I'm not coming around on the headset. We'll see where that goes. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVID. Okay, Scott, that's the show.

We'll be back on Friday for more. Will you read us out? Today's show is produced by Larry Naiman, Travis Larchuk, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil 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. Kara, have a great rest of the week.