Pivot - Russia vs. Big Tech, Facebook Responds (Dismissively), and Friend of Pivot Max Chafkin on Peter Thiel

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

Kara and Scott unpack Russia's fight with Big Tech, Facebook's disappointing response to the Wall Street Journal’s revealing series, and how streaming swept the Emmys. Also, Kara has a big announcement. (Hint: She confirms that Scott is NOT the father). Plus, Friend of Pivot Max Chafkin on Peter Thiel and his new book, The Contrarian.  You can find Max on Twitter at @chafkin. Send us your Listener Mail questions, via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Scott Galloway, and Kara Swisher has a cold. I'm Kara Swisher with a very bad cold. We have such really big news here, and I'm very serious. Yes, Scott is getting a vasectomy.

No, no, no, that's not what's going on. It's related. It's related. It's related. So do you want to break the news or should I? I shall because it is not about you. Oh, everything's about me. Come on, go ahead.

No, it's not. Bring it back to me and trust me, I'll be able to do this. Because you love my children so much and because you always talk about how I'm a perfect parent, which I am, I've decided that it's a good idea, and of course I had nothing to do with it, that we have yet another child, my lovely wife and I, Amanda, are having another baby due in December. So we are four kids. That's what we're doing. We're being very inappropriate.

And are we allowed to talk about the sex of the kid? Sure, yes. Yes, I guess. It's a boy. So I will have three boys and one golden child girl, and the two of us will. And I'm very excited. I'm very excited. I feel like only lesbians and evangelicals are having that many children, except ours are getting vaccinated.

I am so excited. And by the way, of course, like every piece of good news, I have a nice emotional response. I think people like you and Amanda should have kids. I think that's good for the world. Yes, we have good kids. And I'm not bothered by your age because you're rich. And the fact that when this kid's going to college, you'll be, let me see, dead. You'll be dead. That is the only thing. I thought, you know, my oldest son turned to me and he said,

you were almost out, mom. You were almost out. Yeah, Bane, my 19-year-old lovely son, Louie, literally. And you'll see him at Code next week. He turned to me, and he was literally like, you are this close to Bane. I think you lean in. There's the Sultan of Brunei with 45 kids. You're the Sultan of Wokistan. I think you go for like a dozen kids. Yeah, my other son was saying that some men had – he was telling me about – I think it was Genghis Khan.

I can't remember which one he was. He had like 300 kids, so I feel okay Genghis Khan. I can't remember which one he was. He had like 300 kids. So I feel okay. I feel okay. I cannot have 300 kids. So you know there's a decent chance I'm the father, right? No. 100%.

Okay. So this is how. This is a true story. Okay. True story. And again, because of your voice, I'm taking over the show. There was an item when my first son was born that Jeff Bezos might be the father. So that's got as much accuracy as this.

But go ahead. Please avail yourself. Okay. So true story, because I was an athlete for seven months, I had something called access to the athlete job board at UCLA. Yeah. And one of the jobs is, you know, people say follow your passion, the money will follow. Well, I found that for nine months. And that is no joke.

I became a sperm donor. Yes. I remember this. And me and two water polo players went to this clinic, and they took pictures of us basically naked, an IQ test, a personality test. And then also, probably too much information, we had a VD test. And at that point, I decided I would rather die. Now they do hundreds of tests, just so you know. But go ahead. I would rather die of a venereal disease and have another VD test.

I fainted when they gave me the VD test. And I remember waking up to a semicircle of nurses thinking, they're never going to want my fainting sperm. They're never going to want my fainting sperm. No, they don't. They're very strict now. Anyways, I got called back like three or four times a week. And it made no sense because I went with these two guys who were better looking but smarter than me. Let's land this sperm plane.

Okay. So, okay. So, you know what I had? I asked the people at the clinic. I said, all right, why is my sperm like Bitcoin? Although we didn't have Bitcoin like that. And they said, you have the peanut butter and chocolate of sperm donation in West Los Angeles. Can you guess what that is?

What is it? What is it? It's such a disgusting metaphor you're making, but go right ahead. Tall and Jewish. True story. Okay. Tall and Jewish. True story. Okay. Tall and Jewish. And it put me through my junior year.

Story's not over. Yeah. No joke. Put me through my junior year of college doing something I was outstanding at. Okay. And then my mom. Oh, my God. This is a true story.

My mom sat me down and said, you need to stop. Okay, we need to start talking about the Emmy soon, but go ahead. Because your kids could meet their brother and sister and fall in love. No, no. And this is totally unregulated, so there's a chance I have 11,000 or 12,000 children. Okay. So, if your son, when you go to get his driver's license, is 5'10", 120, with bad acne, angry but funny, but funny, and really good on a skateboard? Yeah. Chances are I'm your baby daddy.

It's too old. Your sperm is too old. And it was unregulated. No, you are not the father at all. Let me just disabuse everybody. Wouldn't that be nice? No. Wouldn't that be nice?

It would be, except I could sue you for a lot of money. No. I think that would make us more close. I just interviewed today Ann Wojcicki from 23andMe, and we had a lot of discussion about I still don't understand what they're doing, except you're not supposed to do it, right? Because then people can find out if you're their dad. Well, you know, if they put it up on the internet, yes, if people do that. 23andMe isn't doing it.

The people put up their results. So, you know, there's a site you can go to as a former sperm donor. And if you acknowledge that you want to be contacted, an email goes out to everybody. The problem is you don't know if it's two people or 200. Yes, that's true. My son's found two of their sisters this year

through another one. Really? Yeah. They look just like him. We were joking with Louie about whether he would make an attractive woman

one day and the next day we saw a picture of his half-sister. She's very attractive. It was very funny. This is life with the lesbians.

So now, four children. Okay, let's get back to Amanda and me and the children. No, I want to finish where I started. I think that the reason we're here is to create a better world through happy, loving, secure children. And I think the two of you are outstanding at that. I think all your kids share those qualities.

So well done. It's a good service. Kara, I'm okay with you having kids at the age of 78. You and Tony Randall, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. All right. I'm very excited. I think four is my limit.

That's great news. If not, I turn into like an Appalachian story. So I am very excited, and Amanda is the best parent, and my other kids are great. And I co-parent my kids with a very wonderful person too. So I'm a very lucky lady with all these children. I agree. I agree with you. And my fifth child who is always Scott Galloway.

Anyway, who is the most difficult? Who is literally like the golden child is so much easier than you are in every aspect, just so you know. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, thank you, Scott.

I'm very excited. And I asked Amanda's permission to say this, but we're super excited. So I may take a few weeks off during that time period, but probably not. I'll probably be— Unacceptable! Unacceptable! And by the way, the reason you are in this relationship with someone younger, cooler, and hotter than you is because you make the cabbage and the Benjamins. That's true.

Fair point. Let me give you a little inside track on what it means to be a daddy. Fair point. It means you bring home the cabbage. That is true. So no time off. No time off. No time off.

So I will see you at Code next week, too. So we'll talk about that. That is very exciting. Code. Code. Code is coming. Code. So speaking of which, going to Hollywood, did you watch the Emmys last night?

Did you watch them? I joined several hundred million people in not watching it. Yeah, there's a lot of not watching of the Emmys and the Oscars. They're all worried about that. Well, they should be. And not only that, it was essentially the thing that struck me. And the Hollywood Reporter

had the best line on this. This was CBS airing its own funeral. Do you realize that nine years ago, not a single OTT show was nominated? And this year, the broadcast commercial supported networks got one award for Colbert's election night coverage. I mean, it's literally,

they literally aired their own funeral. It's just striking how the baton has been passed so aggressively and completely. Yeah, except for, yeah, you're right. The Crown and Queen's Gambit from Netflix cleaned up. Ted Lasso and Hacks did in comedy. That's Apple TV Plus and HBO Plus, which does make a lot of TV. Hulu had 21 nominations and came out with zero statues. One thing that was disturbing is there was a lot of people of color nominated, and it was Emmys, so why once again? I think it was true. I think Matt Bellany wrote a great piece about this.

And not just the Emmys, but the Oscars, all these awards, I find them really unsatisfying in the way I didn't used to. And I don't know what that is. I think it's because I don't mind watching just the clips. They have commercials, and they're boring. Michaela Cole made an amazing speech. And Jean Smart, who won for Hacks, did an amazing speech. And then they take her off.

It was just like, what? What's the point of these? The only thing that's cool is sort of the clothes, I guess. Just like with the VMAs or the Met Ball. That's kind of these. The only thing that's cool is sort of the clothes, I guess, just like with the VMAs or the Met Ball. That's kind of cool. But it also feels like another era. I don't know about you, but I don't know what happens to these. What do you imagine happening in the digital age with streaming services sweeping all these times? I think we all go have a high ball at the polo lounge with James Garner and let every, you know, this shit is just so outdated. You literally feel older just watching.

I didn't watch it. I watch, I'm like, I'll find the funnest bits on Twitter. I was trying to look for the second order of the meta theme effect here. And what it strikes me is that we talk a lot about income inequality, but typically when anything becomes digitized and certain players attract a lot of capital and implement technology, there's inequality or the Gini coefficient goes up and there's a concentration of power. And it's happened with content. There are 500 original scripted programs.

Yeah. And basically five swept all the awards. Yeah. You know, it's really interesting because everyone's sort of bemoaning streaming in Hollywood. But I've never watched more TV and liked it. Oh, 100%. But the semantics of it have changed. One, people will no longer tolerate advertising

because they don't need to. Two, the new water cooler is social. I've been talking about Mr. Inbetween, and I talked about the White Lotus. And I heard from both networks saying, do you want information about it? Because the new, quite frankly, Twitter, people no longer talk about programs.

It's their social graph. I think it'll be interesting to talk to Ari Emanuel next week at Code and some others because it's really – it's changed rather dramatically. And they keep talking about streaming in Hollywood. I'm like, it's just entertainment. It's like when people talked about the internet versus as a separate thing. And I was like, at some point, it's electricity. It's just what it is. Anyway, it's an interesting-

Yeah, but their business models are different in one group. I mean, keep in mind, the traditional cable bundle still does three times the profits of the OTTs, but it trades for a third of the market capitalization because the world has decided both human and financial capital are running to non-ad supported streaming. So it presents this really interesting challenge for the traditional guys where they have to

change a jet engine while flying. And that is how do we make the sorts of requisite investments and content to keep up with these guys while at the same time trying to hold on to our opioid induced constipation ads. Yeah. So it's a very- It'll be interesting to see what David Zasloff, I met him by the way, does at Warner because he's banking on the idea that that is the only thing they do, and they do it really well. And I get that.

I get that. Something that was interesting is they lost, for the first time, Chris Nolan, who went over in a bidding war. I don't believe people were bidding for some $100 million deal where he gets to release it in theaters, and it's about the making of the atomic bomb. And I like him well enough, even though Tenet, like whatever. But it was just sort of interesting how they seem to be playing in an old school while acknowledging the new school. Anyway, it's going to be an interesting time. Yeah, Zaslav and Zucker, first off, I've never heard of a company with two guys with Zs running

them, but CNN Plus, I think it's going to be super interesting. I'm super excited about it. But these guys, so far, the traditional guys streaming networks, whether it's Peacock, Fox has something, have kind of been a thud because if you don't go all in, it just doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't. We'll see what they do. We have to get to a bunch of things, but just so you know, your man boy, Beto O'Rourke. He's expected to run for governor of Texas. Governor O'Rourke? He keeps doing this like coy thing. Drives me crazy. He drives me crazy too,

that little hunk of... No, not in a good way. No, listen. But current polling shows that Greg Abbott is a five-point lead over O'Rourke even after the Texas abortion

and stuff. That's down from a 12-point lead. But in context, Matthew McConaughey is polling better than O'Rourke against the governor.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right, all right, all right. I would so like, I occasionally consult to a candidate on his communication strategy, and I'm the kiss of death. Who? I am the kiss of death. Nobody ever wins that I consult to. Lindsey Graham, who? Who are you consulting with?

Well, I'll just say I'm a big, I'm a fan of Senator Bennett. I'm a fan of Andrew Yang. And occasionally they, I don't want to overstep my role. I've just—occasionally they're nice enough to call me, which probably means they just want me to write them a check. But anyways, I think Matthew McConaughey could just win with just one statement. What? It's a church picnic, and daddy's brought the egg salad. Hello?

Hello, hello. I mean, that guy, he will say abso-fucking-lutely nothing, and it'll sound very compelling. Right, right, right. Unfortunately, between him and Beto, it's like watching, I don't know, two Venezuelans in Miss Universe. It's like, okay, she's hot. She's hotter. No, she's hotter. Well, see, you know what's going to happen?

Greg Abbott's going to squeak in there. He's such a menace, but there you go. I would bet the good money's on him getting reelected. We'll see. Unfortunately. We'll see. I. We'll see. I don't know. They're very attractive candidates for sure.

Okay, Cara, I'm going to slip into the MC booth here. I am Cedric the Entertainer. Okay. Time for our first big story. Russia versus big tech. A couple of things went down here. First, Google and Apple pulled an election-related app after the Russian government outlawed it. Hmm.

And the app was used by Russian opposition candidates. The Russian government reportedly threatened Google and Apple employees with prosecution. Well, then. Also, Google pulled down YouTube videos and Google Docs used by supporters of dissident leaders Alexei Navalny. So, do you think Google and Apple had any options here, or do you think this is just big tech continuing to say? We're not paying a lot of attention to what's happening abroad, but what's going on in India and Russia and wherever they are, they're facing massive problems, which are almost opposite the ones here, which are kind of interesting,

where they have to really apply themselves to the laws of those countries. This has happened before in Germany in the past and stuff like that. But it's really difficult to know what to do here except not have employees in those countries, which complicates the situation. But every country is going to have their own splinter net, which is, I don't envy these companies operating under these things. And at the same time, they look terrible. They look like Putin's puppets in lots of ways. What do you think? I think it's easy to be a purist when you're not running a global company. And the reality is global companies have to comply with the domestic laws they want to operate in. And sometimes these laws are kind of the externalities of a kleptocracy or an autocracy, and they have a very difficult decision to make.

or an autocracy, and they have a very difficult decision to make, and that is, do we want to engage and support and create economic growth for what are sometimes very corrupt governments? And sometimes even worse, we want to be vehicles for that corruption in terms of forking over data or letting them have our servers. They're in a very tight spot. I usually am not that empathetic or sympathetic to tech companies, but it's very difficult. I usually side on the side of the companies. And I think there's a political reason to continue to engage with these companies. And that is when companies... I was talking about international students with a friend. And the bottom line is the easiest way to get into an elite university is to have an exceptionally wealthy parent from a foreign country and get your kid in by making a big donation. And that's a bit of an

overreach, but I think it's largely true. But I still think it's a good thing because when people interact with each other, they're less likely to go to war with each other. So I think that when Pepsi went into Russia, I think actually Apple in China is actually good. I think it takes the temperature down of conflict because we have a lot to lose, and everybody understands the currency of money. And so before China gets all angry about Australia and a submarine, they still have to think, well, how gangster do we want to go? Because there's a lot of people here making a living from our relationship with an American company. So I like our American companies being overseas.

Well, I think they have no power in these countries. I mean, that's the problem. What's going on in India is particularly, because that's a democracy, right? It's not like Russia, where Putin runs the show and everything else, or China or anywhere else. And what's interesting is in this country, of course, the right accused them of censoring over Trump's big lie. They were not censoring. They were cleaning it up. But where they can do things about it, they do. In the case of Russia, they certainly had very little choice. And it gave the Navalny people a big focus, even though they didn't win United Russia, which is Putin's party won rather handily, I think, but not as well as they did before. And I think he's going to try to hold

on to the reins of power, and that's via internet companies, no matter what. And they may be different in what they do in each country. And so they'll look like it'll be like a patchwork of solutions, none of which will agree with each other. Telegram blocked a chatbot used by Navalny supporters. So what do they do there? They don't. I don't know what the people in fascist countries do because these people are gonna control no matter. And by the way, Trump would have done it if he could in this country too. That's right, that's right.

I don't know. You know, I don't tend to side with the tech companies, but in this case, boy, I would not wanna, these people did not study for this test. No, it's a tough spot. And I usually, I don't usually fall on the side of tech, but I think they deserve a bit of a hall pass here because I do think there's real benefits, not only to Americans pulling revenues out of these countries or monetizing activity over there

for the benefit of our shareholders and our employees mostly. But commerce has been kind of the solvent or the neosporin for a lot of war, I think. I think we're just less likely when we trade with each other to go to war. I don't know. I think if one of them stood up to them, it would be quite a thing. I would like to see that. Well, Google, to be fair, Google kind of did, right? You don't think so? Google said, no, we're not playing? Well, in certain places, I think it's really, I just, there's no good answer here. Just like our next topic. All right, Kara, let's go on a quick break.

And when we come back, we'll discuss Facebook's attempt at damage control. And then we'll talk to a friend of Pivot about, about Peter Thiel. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more

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Okay, we're back with our second big story. Facebook is responding to the Wall Street Journal's outstanding series on Facebook. VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg says the journal, quote, deliberately mischaracterized Facebook's actions. Well, that's a shocker. Clegg said Facebook doesn't conduct research and then systematically and willfully ignore it if the findings are inconvenient for the company. That's exactly what the fuck they do, Clegg. are inconvenient for the company. That's exactly what the fuck they do, Clegg. Anyways, the latest reporting covered Zuckerberg's failed vaccine push

and looked at the role of Facebook comments in undermining vaccine confidence. The journal reported that at a gathering of Facebook's leadership this month, some officials wondered whether Facebook had gotten too big. A Facebook spokesperson pushed back on that depiction as well.

What are your thoughts here? I have a lot of thoughts. I wrote about it. I mean, his thing was called what the Wall Street Journal got wrong or what Nick Clegg got wrong. You know, it's actually, he's their company's smoothest operator, let's be clear. And unlike other executives who've been responding on Twitter, he didn't embarrass himself. But what he did is he said absolutely nothing, because I think probably he was sitting in his office and he's gotten very close to Zuckerberg and others there and powerful.

And he had to say something because saying nothing was a problem, right? And it's not just one topic. It's like 10 topics they've sucked at, right? And so one of the things I think that he tried to do was put confusion and obfuscation in, in a way, by saying things like, this is complex. And people are working on it and we're not bad people. How dare they call us bad? That's not what the journal story said. So nobody is saying that Facebook is Thanos. They just didn't. But he pretended that they did. So he said at the heart of the series is an allegation that's just plain false,

that Facebook conducts research and then systematically and willfully ignores the findings or the findings are inconvenient for the company. They didn't say that. They said that they make these calls and they're usually made by Mark Zuckerberg and he makes a lot of bad calls. And that's different. There's a lot of people. And then the second thing is he talked about cherry picking pieces and selective quotes from the stories. And then he cherry picked a study that's favorable to Facebook. And then the last thing he did, which drove me crazy, is he did this. The jury is still out on whether social media is to blame. It's nascent. It's early. And so we don't know yet. And it sounds so much like the cigarette manufacturers. You know what I mean? Nobody's

saying they caused the January 6th attacks. People are saying they're part of the problem by letting President Trump do all these things. So he's a very clever man, and he got to this problem late. He's trying to throw FUD into this. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Well, that's what they do. They create that great series when Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant and his defense attorney said, I create muck. I kind of gum up the prosecution's case. And I think this all, I was on a panel this morning with Sir Martin Sorrell with Reuters, and we brought up teen depression. And he said, teen depression is complex. It involves alcohol. It involves drugs. And I said, you're right. And we've regulated all of those things. But one key component, or what appears to be a key component, where one in eight British girls are citing as their motivation for actually contemplating suicide is a company and an industry that we don't regulate. should not drink alcohol. We criminalized drugs. We decided that pornographic content should be

age-gated. But yet this industry, you're right, it's multidimensional, but every other dimension seems to have regulators concerned about it. For me, it goes all the way back to the classified ad business. And that is the classified ad business was a monopoly. If you wanted to sell your 1984 Honda Accord gray car, which I hadn and sold, you had to run a little $30 ad in the classifieds. Classifieds and papers have monopolies or duopolies, and that was used to fund outstanding newsrooms. And slowly but surely, newspapers and specifically classifieds got picked apart, and then technology started garnering all the resources. And what have we had, Karen, in the last 30 years? The number of journalists in the United States has been cut in

half, and the number of PR executives has gone up sixfold. So the ratio of bullshit to investigative journalism has gone in the wrong direction 12x, and Nick Clegg is an example of that. Yeah, what's interesting here is when Amazon objected to that story the Times had, they had a detailed, detailed, you know, argument against it. And in a weird way, I respected it more. This was like, I don't know, a thousand words or less. I don't even think it's a thousand words. And he didn't say anything except he didn't say anything. Like that's what I was like sort of so a lot of people are calling it a non-denial denial.

I don't really know, but I was like, I get to the end, I'm like, okay, where's the, oh, it's not here. Right? So what we want from you, Nick Clegg, is transparency. Like, if you, let your researchers in. Let people in. Explain yourselves better instead of being so fucking defensive. That's never going to happen. Let's send in Senator Klobuchar.

We're not. That's who we need to send in. We're not Thanos. Send in Klobuchar. It's kind of funny. It's weird. I literally was, I got to the end and I was like, where's the rest of this? Like, where's the actual defense?

The journal thing was like a zillion words long. What are the selective quotes? Which are misquoted? Can you explain what you're talking about? Like, that's what's not in here. And I think it's just typical. They're like victims, and they've been like badly treated by people. And why don't you love us for all the good you've done? So, if he's going to bring it, bring it a little bit more. Let me present a question. I've been thinking a lot about this. I mean, I feel like they've overrun government. They've overrun media. They've overrun communications.

And resources have entirely flipped where the government used to show up with the biggest stick. And now it's tech companies where 44 states ask, have to ask Facebook not to launch Instagram for kids versus they used to just tell them. I've been thinking a lot about Michael Milken. Yeah. Michael Milken, innovator, became a billionaire, was found of wrongdoing and went to prison for 10 years. Do you think that Mark Zuckerberg or Michael Milken, who has levied more damage on the Commonwealth, Michael Milken or Mark Zuckerberg? Probably Zuckerberg. Let me ask you another question. If Michael Milken were born 30 years later and he was the CEO of a super hot fintech company and got accused of insider trading but he was an innovator and a billionaire as the head of a fintech company, would he be sent to prison for 10 years?

No, no. You know, that Connie Bruck book was so good, The Predator's Ball. Do you remember that? Yeah, great book. It's the same bullshit. Anyway, we've got to get to our friend of Pivot. But let me just say, The Predator's Ball. Do you remember that? It's the same bullshit. Anyway, we've got to get to our friend of Pivot, but let me just say, bring the evidence, Nick. That's all. Do something detailed and specific. Instead of this, we're not bad people. We don't think you're, well, some people think you're bad people. I think Scott does. I think there is a problem

with the architecture of what has been made that it's impossible to fix. Let's have that discussion. They don't want to have that discussion. Anyway. Yeah, I'm hoping that Lena Kahn and Tim Wu bring specifics on the antitrust case and that they federalize the Texas AG's cartel investigation, which has criminal remedies. That's who needs to bring it. 100 years from now, we'll know the real damage here. But honestly, it feels like cigarette makers now.

This is what Mark Benioff said to me years ago, and I laughed at him. I was like, come on. So let's bring in our friend of Pivot, Cara, Max Chavkin. Max is the author of The Contrarian, Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power, which is out today. What a thrill. What a thrill. We have access to Max. I'm here.

All right, Max. Okay, so first question. You report on a meal between Thiel, Zuckerberg, and the Trump White House where Zuckerberg and Kushner cut a deal. Facebook won't fact-check political speech, and the White House won't regulate social media. So to the unholy alliance, say more. Yeah. And we've seen conversations about this going on. There's been lots and lots of conjecture and I think actually quite a bit of pretty persuasive evidence that's come out suggesting that Facebook was trying its best to kind of cater to Donald Trump to avoid, for lack of a better word, pissing off, you know, the Trump administration. And there was this

dinner at the White House with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Peter Thiel and his husband, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka and Donald Trump and Melania. And after the meeting, as I report in the book, Thiel told a confidant that, you know, basically Zuckerberg had cut a deal. Now, I don't know, again, it could have been maybe this is a tacit deal, or maybe this is just a wink wink or something like that. I'm sure there's opportunity for dispute. But at least Peter Thiel's understanding, you know, as far as I know, was that it was a deal. Oh, can I ask you a question? Because I know Peter really well, and I met him a decade ago. Of course. He tends to exaggerate sometimes, you know what I mean? Like for his power, right

around his power and what power he has. And in this case, he did have a lot of power with Trump. And I think he finds, let me just say, Peter Thiel is one of the smartest people I've ever met, like in Silicon Valley. He's so interesting in mind. I don't like everything that comes out of his brain. But talk a little bit about how he got into power there. And whether you know, he sort of wielded it in Silicon Valley right at the start with that crazy meeting that Trump had with them. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, it was this kind of big mystery back in 2016, when when Thiel shows up on the, you know, on the list of delegates for Donald Trump, then speaks at the convention,

then donates to Trump. And there was some dispute, right? Some people are saying, well, he doesn't really like Trump. This is some kind of contrarian head fake. Or maybe really this is an expression of his total value system or something like that. I think it's a bit of both. And I think it did a bunch of things for him. I mean, of course, it got him in the room with Trump, you know, got him a significant role in the transition. And we could talk about how what he did with that and whether it was really worth it. It also kind of put him in a position, as you kind of hinted at as a power broker, as somebody who can sit between Mark Zuckerberg, you know, I'd argue most powerful media mogul in the world, maybe in human history,

and the President of the United States. And we saw that, as you said, in that there was an early 2016 meeting with Zuckerberg and a bunch of kind of conservative poobahs where Thiel's kind of right in the middle there. And that has kind of continued where Thiel has sat in that power broker role. And I think you can argue about how much influence he's really had. Of course, Zuckerberg, you know, is the absolute dictator, more or less, of Facebook. So I don't, you know, Peter Thiel can't force him to do anything. Although I do think that, and I think, Kerry, you've brought this up a bunch of times, I think Thiel has had a big influence on Zuckerberg's ideology, his worldview. And I think you kind of just continually see that in sort of the news that comes out about Facebook, the things that Mark Zuckerberg says, and so on.

The only thing is Mark is not nearly as smart as Teal. I know that sounds crazy from someone who doesn't agree with him almost anything. But one of the things he has is he's very smart. I don't know how else to put it. He's so smart. And I think his books are interesting and things like that. Again, I don't typically agree with him on a lot of things. But talk a little bit about why you focused on him. Cause I think he's a unique personality

in Silicon Valley in terms of disdainful of sort of liberalism does play a little bit with like, there's such liberals here when in fact, Silicon Valley people aren't that liberal, you know, actually they're more like Peter actually in my experience. I mean, I totally agree with you on that, on that political judgment. And I mean, I think he's interesting because, look, he's, as you say, you know, one of the most important, if not the most important sort of venture capitalists. Of course, there are people who have more money and have had maybe arguably better returns or whatever.

But in terms of the kind of cultural impact and the philosophical impact, I think it's pretty unusual. I mean, just to take one example, which other Trump adjacent figures have come out super well out of the Trump administration? Like, I mean, how many other early transition figures, you know, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, the people he was really playing with, like, they have not come out super well. And Thiel, on the other hand, I think, has come out looking rather good. I mean, it obviously depends on your point of view and your judgment, but he's out there, you know, sort of making new political moves, you know, supporting these Senate candidates, J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, who are both kind of, you know, employees or ex-employees, you know, they're really

ideological extensions of Peter Thiel, I would argue. And so he's had this continued political impact. He's still on Facebook's board, despite giving Zuckerberg a zillion reasons to, you know, can him. So I think he's actually done very well, you know, obviously navigating very, very difficult and controversial period. Max, it strikes me that, and this is a loaded word, but that Peter Thiel is genuinely misunderstood, not in the sense that people have more of a negative or a positive impression than they should. But I think it's difficult to kind of put your thumb on this guy or to get your – understand the pulse of what drives him. He's obviously brilliant and arguably one of the best investors in history, incredibly influential, but really likes Trump, then doesn't like him. What about him, his complexion, his personality,

what drives him was most surprising to you? Do you think the public may not understand about him? Well, so one thing that I think is overlooked about Peter Thiel and is overlooked about many of these tech figures is the sense of which he's a really great marketer. You can talk about Peter Thiel as an investor, as an operator. Of course, he ran PayPal for a short amount of time. But where he's really been influential is creating this kind of larger-than-life persona.

And that's Peter Thiel, the hero slash villain, the, you know, whatever. The contrarian, I think. The contrarian, yeah. That's right, yeah. And I think, and what's really interesting to me is the extent to which I think he has been the architect of that.

Like, I don't think it's been totally an accident. I think he, of course, wrote that book and has been sort of very judicious in how he kind of speaks and stuff. But he also has this kind of army of followers. It's not a conventional network. You know, you have the PayPal mafia of this inner circle, but then you have these, you know, outer regions of it,

you know, in terms of like Thiel fellows, these young people who, you know, get $100,000 drop out of school. And then there are kind of aspirants who are basically auditioning for Peter Thiel's money, for Peter Thiel's, you know, some piece of this empire. What's also interesting is a lot of people like Reid Hoffman and others remain friends with him who are much different politically. And they're always saying to me, oh, you hung out with him. I've hung out with him not a lot, but enough.

You really like him. And he does maintain those friendships, it seems like, compared to some people who do get abandoned when they're considered conservative or Trumpy or whatever. Well, and I would argue, you know, I understand that Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel are at opposite ends of the political spectrum in some ways. I mean, you know, Reid donates to Democrats and Peter is pretty, donates to like the Trumpiest of Trumpy Republicans. But I would argue that they have maybe more in common than – Oh, me too, yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's true that like there are some disagreements.

But I think Reid shares many aspects of Peter's worldview. And I think like you said, Cara, earlier, like I think Silicon Valley as a whole is not as left as people think. It's much closer to the sort of teal libertarian stuff. A hundred percent. And yeah, they're not all going to go all the way to, you know, hardcore Trump support, but I do think they agree with him. And I think they also just sort of, they respect success. And that, I think that is something that should give people pause. I mean, I'm not sure that success is something that we should just like, you know, that doesn't, might doesn't necessarily make right.

But I think among a lot of techies, they sort of believe that at their core. Do you have any sense for what he'll do next? I mean, it seems like he's, I'm half expecting for him to announce that he's going to build a rocket. I mean, what do you think is his next thing as he just continues to invest? Well, so I think you have sort of two things going on. One is this continued political engagement. I mean, I think that, you know, he's, so he's donated 10 million bucks to JD Vance, 10 million bucks to Lake Master, sorry, pledged to their PACs, right? So not a direct contribution, but, but that's a, you know, 20 X increase of his political spending, right? In 2016. I mean, he's, he's, he's definitely

cranking it up a notch. And I think there's a concerted play, right, in 2016. I mean, he's definitely cranking it up a notch. And I think there's a concerted play, you know, the move to Miami, I think is part of this to some extent, but there's a conservative play to become the sort of patron of this far right populist nationalist movement that basically the Trump party, whatever you want to call it, the 30% of the country that really loves Donald Trump. I mean, I think Peter Thiel wants to cultivate candidates in that domain and maintain influence there. And I think, you know, he's making investments. He's continuing to invest. And I think he's, I think, similar in some ways to the Koch brothers in the way that he combines politics and business, where it's like he has a business project and his political project, but those two things are

always connected. And they always sort of feed into each other, where you have the politics. His candidates are always going to be advocating, I think, for positions that are going to help his bottom line and help the bottom lines of his companies. And then those companies kind of in turn are going to reinforce the political side. So you saw, just to give one example at random, but he and J.D. Vance invested in this sort of right-wing YouTube competitor, Free Speech officially. Rumble. Rumble, yeah.

And so I think you see things like that. I think, you know, obviously he's definitely got some interest in crypto, although it's hard to figure out where exactly he wants to take that. So I think he's going to keep on keeping on, keep on trying to— You know what? I think at the heart, I think he thinks Trump's an idiot. That would be my guess because for him, Trump would be an idiot. But I do think he hates government. Like, I don't know what else to say.

I remember an interview I did with him at the time, and both of us are gay. And I just had children, and I was talking about getting adoption rights, you know, equal adoption rights. And he kept saying special rights. And I was like, equal rights? Like, I don't have the same rights. I have equal rights. Like, I don't have the same rights. I have less rights. And so it was a really interesting discussion to have, I think, between us at a very early time in both our lives in a lot of ways. And it's just government he hates.

Like, I don't want government in my business. I said, I want them out of my business too. So get out of my adoption rights, right, that everybody else has. It was a really interesting discussion. But at the heart, anyone who wants to destroy government, I think he embraces is my take on the whole thing, or get or minimize it to an extent. Totally agree. I mean, I think of course, he thinks Trump's an idiot, but he probably thinks a lot of you know, I mean, there's probably an extent to which even if Trump were 50%, you know, more suave or something, he would still think he was an idiot.

Maybe. But I do think that Trump, in a lot of ways, hits some of the buttons for Peter. I mean, yes, they're like completely different. I mean, Trump is kind of a reactionary from real estate, an industry I don't think Peter totally respects. And there are just a million ways in which Trump's crass kind of character, I think, probably rubs in the wrong way. On the other hand, Trump's entire thing is this idea that he's going to say the things that normal people, that the elites are afraid to say. You know, political, you know, incorrectness, I think, was core to Trump's candidacy,

core to, you know, the appeal of Trump to a lot of voters. And I'd say core to Peter Thiel's appeal. I mean, he wrote a whole book in the 90s called The Diversity Myth, which is like all about trying to sort of poke it in the eye of the kind of left establishment. I think there is some genuine, you know, affinity between the two. Why doesn't he run? Why doesn't he run? That's exactly what would happen. Do you think he has it in him?

Do you think he'll run for office? No, I kind of think not. I mean, there was, you might remember, there were rumors in 2018, which I don't think he ceded that he was going to run for governor of California. I think that probably came from maybe a well-wisher or somebody who wanted to be hired to run his campaign. So I think he's sort of more comfortable playing that behind-the-scenes role. I mean, he's not a particularly charismatic dude. I mean, he is in person, Kara, as you say, he's very likable. There are aspects to his personality

that are very attractive, and he's a good looking man and stuff, but he doesn't have that kind of charismatic politicians thing. He stutters, he's kind of constantly revising. He's almost, weirdly for somebody who loves bomb throwing, he's kind of weirdly too careful or something to be a political animal. And I mean, I think we saw it even during the, you know, Trump transition. It was almost like the dog that catches a car or something, right? Yeah, he didn't seem to like the attention and liked it at the same time. He didn't know what to do with it. Yeah.

Trump was touching him. Do you remember? He was hugging him or whatever. And he looked like... Yeah, holding his hand. He looked like he was like, let me get out of here. Like, I could see, I mean, maybe he liked it. I don't know.

Don't ask me. But let me ask you a question about the story that was written about the $5 billion Roth IRA. It's so Peter Thiel that he could unlock in 2027. He saved all this money. Everyone's like, how dare he? And Key, of course, is probably like, yes, I did it. Like, I tricked the government taking my money again. Right? Yeah, no, totally. It's not like wanting to get out of paying taxes in a secret for Peter Thiel, right? That's the kind of the whole point of seasteading and a whole slew of

his kind of political activist projects are around, you know, tax exposure. It is a super aggressive thing that he did. I mean, these these Roth IRAs were created really for middle class and lower middle class taxpayers that are not designed to be used by billionaires. And I do wonder if he got to a position at some point where it sort of got too big for its own good, where once you have $5 billion in that, and it's probably a lot more by now, you're maybe a target in a way that you don't necessarily want to be. And talking to people who are in his network and stuff, that fact, you know, hangs over a lot of his dealings, a lot of his personal interactions. Like when you're in a position where, you know, if things go bad politically, at any point, you could owe, I don't know, a couple billion dollars. That's kind of,

he's got a lot riding on every tax policy conversation, including some conversations that are, you know, going on right now. You know, he's been depicted, I worked a little bit on the Silicon Valley show by two different people in that show. The one guy in the first season who I thought actually did a great job with the hamburgers and this and that. And then also this whole blood thing.

Can you talk about that? Because, you know, this life extension thing, and there's others, Larry Ellison has made some investments in that area. Lots of Silicon Valley people do that. Can you give us like what's actually happening? Because it's easy to call him blood boy. Yeah, I don't think, and I spent some time

kind of trying to look into this. I don't think there's a lot, I mean, the blood boy thing is satire basically. Yes. Is going to be my, is my gossip. I think he wants to look good, that's my whole thing. I'm sure. And not die, and not die so quick.

But I, and I do, I'm not even sure how big into this life extension thing he really is. I mean, he's definitely, as you say, made some investments, and he's made comments about wanting to fund life extension research. He's also like, you know, really into the idea of sort of deregulating the pharmaceutical industry and, you know, stuff that kind of feels like more mainstream Silicon Valley stuff. But I don't know, I kind of put this in the category of feels like more mainstream Silicon Valley stuff. But I don't know. I kind of put this in the category of Peter Thiel, the brand. I mean, as being the guy who funds the crazy out there stuff, I don't know that it's a huge amount of his time. And if you look at the amount of money he spent, it's really not that much. I think he just likes to fuck with people. That's my impression.

I think he likes to fuck with people. Absolutely. Not that much. I think he just likes to fuck with people. I think he likes to fuck with people. Absolutely. So the thing that he first came on my radar was when he decided to essentially, he put Gawker out of business. Yeah. And a lot of us sort of looked at it, at least initially.

I thought Gawker was, for lack of a better term, depraved, some of the things they did. And I was rooting him on. And then you start thinking about, okay, what does it mean when billionaires can put media companies out of business? Do you think there's any other company or media company in his sights? He strikes me as someone who simply put, I mean, I think your book's gonna do really well because I think he's a fascinating character.

And I also don't think people really understand him. So if your book sheds light on this seminal character, I think it's gonna do really well. But he strikes me as someone who definitely holds a grudge. And who do you think is in, who or what is in his sights right now? Well, I talked to some folks who worked on that Gawker campaign. And as you said, you kind of almost have to separate the specifics of Gawker with the kind of long-term implications for free speech and for freedom of the press. I don't think he's got another press target. I talked to some folks who were trying to egg him on and find one.

And I think, as I understand, he was resistant to it. He wanted to grind Gawker and Nick Denton into dust. Check that box. Yeah, yeah. I do think when you look at, OK, well, who's he beefing with? Google is, I'd say, a, you know, an interesting candidate. I mean, I don't think it's quite as profound as the Gawker thing, but he has in all sorts of ways been kind of needling at Google,

both with his public comments, with political contributions, and plus with proximity and kind of funding and encouragement to these conservative activists who have been, you know, making it their business to kind of mess with the tech companies. And of course, you know, what was it two years ago, he said that Google was like a, you know, a bunch of Chinese spies or something like that. So he's definitely training the canon there. And I think there's a bunch of different reasons for that. I think some of which are genuine, like genuinely ideologically, he doesn't like Google too much. But also, of course, knocking Google down a peg is probably helpful to Facebook.

It's probably helpful to Palantir. It's probably helpful to many of the companies in which Teal is an investor. And like I said, I think it always works its way. It's partly ideological, partly kind of selfish. Yeah, I would say so. He's a really interesting guy. I was always like, oh, he's going to sue us at some point.

And someone actually told me, no, he likes you. You know what I mean? I was like, no, he would sue me if he needed to at any moment in time. He's a fascinating person. I think it'll be interesting what happens with J.D. Vance.

Yeah, but the good news is you have an army that's beginning to look like the Navy SEALs called your children. That is correct. We will deploy. You're very safe. All right, Max, the book is called The Contrarian, Peter Thiel, and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. It is available now.

Thanks for your good work. Good luck with the book. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks, Max. All right, Kara, one more quick break. Still to come, we'll tell pivot listeners how to get into The Verge's 10th birthday party. What a thrill! And we'll be back for wins and fails.

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Do you have any or is it, what's the deal here? Here's the win. I got a win. The announcement that some of the early testing on children 5 to 12 on the vaccines is looking good. And it looks like a lot of those kids, my daughter's too young at this point. Obviously the baby isn't born yet, but that's really great news for a lot of parents.

I know a lot of parents are nervous and I've done like, we've done a COVID test already with the school, you know, cause she had a little cold and this and that. So I think it'll be really a relief to a lot of parents who are interested in getting their kids vaccinated, many, too many or not. I think it'll be really a relief to a lot of parents who are interested in getting their kids vaccinated, many, too many or not. I think that's a win. And a fail? I don't have a fail. Go ahead, Scott. I'll think of it. Well, first off on your win, word, my sister, it is a state

of chaos down here, as much chaos as you can have. In our circle, we have an unvaccinated 11-year-old boy and the entire second grade, you know, it's one person, one kid tests positive. And we fell into this cold comfort of thinking, and it was a false narrative that, oh, kids, don't worry about kids. And that's just not true. You need to be worried about kids.

And to be clear, so far in Florida, I don't know if you say only 20 or 20 kids have passed away, but this is really frightening. And the vaccination for a lot of us has been a real source, a real blessing, a real source of security and comfort. And to not have that across what are your most valuable assets is really, really stressful. Did you see some of the things they're doing in schools though now instead of quarantining kids, they're testing them. They're doing more testing in order to keep them in school. Well, testing is key. I mean, we test our 11-year-old every 48 hours. Yeah. My win is my first day back, my fail was a lack of leadership on the part of President Biden to institute vaccine mandates. And there were a lot of good reasons, legal reasons, you can't do that,

you can't do it at state level, at school level. And literally on cue the next morning, and I'm not claiming it's because of us, he announced a series of vaccine mandates, including the most powerful that any employer over 100 people has to vaccinate their employees. And immediately, people were saying, oh, it might not be legal. And he said, have at it. And I think that's what leadership looks like. When we, FDR sent destroy not be legal. And he said, have at it. And I think that's what leadership looks like. When we, FDR sent destroyers to Britain when it was illegal. We have invaded nations and killed hundreds of thousands of people under what most lawyers would describe as illegal. Gavin Newsom married you and it was probably illegal.

He didn't marry me specifically. But go ahead. He didn't get married by Gavin Newsom. But go ahead. I thought you told me Governor Newsom married you. No, he passed the thing as mayor of San Francisco. I got married by, I don't know, the controller of the city. Whatever.

Go ahead. I thought he married you. I like that image of like dreamy Gavin Newsom and you getting married. I wish I'd like that image. Anyways, that was going to be my Christmas card this year. Maybe he could marry you and I if I can get him to come to the co-church. That's right, because I am your baby daddy. I've already married you.

The dog is the daddy. Yeah, no. Come on. No, no. Neither is Peter Thiel. No. Great skateboarder. None of you.

Not Jeff Bezos. Great skateboarder. Angry, prone to depression, terrible acne, but a great skateboarder. All right, your win is mine. Well, my fail. Okay, my fail. My fail is I think I was really,

and I'm curious to get your take on this. I could not figure out my emotions when AOC showed up in the Tax the Rich dress. That. And I thought, okay, she is exactly the kind of person that should be at the Met Gala. She's influential. She's fashionable. She's scorching hot. Not that I notice looks, and I don't want to objectify women, but the Met Gala should have ridiculously fashionable, hot people like AOC.

But I thought if a ridiculously good-looking, hot Republican woman showed up with a dress that said no mask mandates, it really would have pissed me off. And then immediately, and that's not even my fail, because everything's been politicized. But the thing that I didn't like about it was that afterwards she got attacked and she immediately went to, well, there's always a ton of criticism around powerful women. And it's the same thing Tucker Carlson does. When anyone criticizes him. Yeah, I thought it was a mistake.

Anyone criticizes him for spreading misinformation, he immediately, his go-to is, it's the cultural elite and the establishment coming from me. And my favorite comedian, Michelle Wolf, described it as kind of this Louisville sluggering, as she would call it. And Kellyanne Conway kind of invented it where you would say, okay, 26 people have accused the president of assault. And she would somehow end up within three seconds talking about how great America is. And it was like, what are you talking about? So I found that AOC- We call it a Clegg this week, but go ahead. There you go, a Clegging. But I thought, okay, I didn't think that was a good move. But what I

think made it worse was immediately wrapping herself in the sexism defense. And I don't think this was about sexism. She should just have owned it. She should have just owned what she did. And I thought it was a bad visual. I really am a big supporter of her, but I was like, oh, no, I can't do this. Anyway, I have a fail. Very quickly. The Didi co-founder and president, Jean Liu, who I've had on stage at Code, by the way, many years ago, is going to step down. And she expects China's government to take control of the company, which is this ride-sharing company.

The stock's down. This move by China, they just did something else with their version of TikTok. I think it's Douyin or something like that. They're just trying to absolutely control the tech industry. I'm watching this with a lot of interest, I'll just say. I like Jean. She's also the daughter of Lenovo founder who is also getting

attacked in China. She's from an elite in China, 100%, but an incredibly interesting woman. Just very troubling what's happening. This is reported by Reuters, by the way, sources said. Agreed. That is super interesting and also disturbing.

We're taking a listener question on Friday's show, as usually. Want to hear from you? And I mean here. Record a question for us at nymag.com slash pivot. October 22nd and 23rd, there'll be some incredible guests, immersive tech, and art experiences, all-day DJs, and great food and drinks. And for a limited time, we're offering our Pivot listeners $50 off the standard ticket. Go to voxmediaevents.com slash ontheverge for tickets and enter the promo code URGE to VERGE for your $50 off. That's URGE to VERGE, one word, all caps, no spaces. We'll be back on Friday for more. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman,

Evan Engel, Taylor Griffin, Ernie Endertot, engineer this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. 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. Making money is meaningful. Being relevant is meaningful. Having friends, being a good citizen is meaningful. But it's all a means to the ends. And the ends are raising children with someone you love. That is profound. Today, Kara Swisher, you are profound. Thank you. And Scott is not the father. I can confirm that.

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I just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo.