Pivot - Sexual harassment at Google, nasty YouTube comments and Beto O'Rourke

Episode Date: November 2, 2018

Kara and Scott talk about Google's attempts to cover up sexual harassment claims against three of its top executives; the negative effects of cable news on society; and Scott's man-crush on Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke. Plus: What Kara did on Halloween and Scott's taxonomy of love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're a business owner, it can sometimes feel like the odds are stacked against you, but QuickBooks knows you never back down. That's why they're always in your corner, making it easier for you to manage your business so you have the time to take care of details that matter most. No matter what your version of success is, QuickBooks can give you smarter business tools to get you there. QuickBooks, backing you. Learn more at QuickBooks.com.

That's QuickBooks.com. That's QuickBooks.com. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway, here to talk free markets and find out who Cara is getting a pedicure or having lunch with. I'm having a Halloween evening with Elon Musk. We're going to be doing a podcast. Oh, my God.

Okay, genius, schminious. More importantly, I heard he gets great weed. Oh, okay. I don't do that kind of stuff, Scott. That kind of stuff? Even though it's legal here in California. That kind of stuff? That kind of stone.

I'm not a – you know what? I didn't do that in high school. I was just not a drinker. I'm not a – That's what went wrong. Yeah. Where can we hear that interview? Enrico Dico?

Anyway, we have lots to talk about. We've got lots to talk about. Last time. Hillary Clinton. Last time we were there. Oh, yeah. So, Carrie, you spoke with Madam Secretary and saw her body language up front.

What's your view? Is she running or not? Well, let's hear what she has to say. We're going to talk about 2020 in a minute. Do you want to run again? No. Wait. No.

That was a pause. Well, I'd like to be president. Okay. Look, I think, hopefully, when we have a Democrat in the Oval Office in January of 2021, there's going to be so much work to be done. I mean, we have confused everybody in the world, including ourselves. And we have confused our friends and our enemies. They have no idea what the United States stands for, what we're likely to do, what we think is important.

So the work would be work that I feel very well prepared for, having been in the Senate for eight years, having been a diplomat in the State Department. And it's just going to be a lot of heavy lifting. You know, I'll tell you what was surprising. I mean, she's a she's a she's a tough lady. And I like that about her. She just says her piece, you know what I mean? And she really is used to getting just pillory. No matter what she says, she literally, whatever she does, they twist it into some, like, demented thing all over. And I think one of the things is the president thing. Everyone was like, she didn't deny it.

Like, it was really interesting. She kind of did, and I thought she did. And I think what she didn't do was she didn't completely shut it down and so everybody went crazy on the internet and on I I was like I was like trending on Fox News which was really my mother of course like oh you're on Fox News I'm like great this is my end of my life right now but uh it was the they showed a lot of that of her talking about that and she talked a lot about Russia which I thought was important and a little about the election coming up and I thought she was incredibly uh you, calm and very clear and very forthright compared to a lot of other Democrats. She was

very laying out the problems. And I thought she did a great job. And it was also her birthday, which was nice. I'm trying to think what else. What else did she say? What did you I mean, I don't know. Well, let me ask you, you're there. You're saying the body language. If there's anything resembling a draft Hillary movement, do you think she's in? Do you think she's running again? No. I think she would like to be part of a next Democratic administration. That's what I think.

You know what I mean? Like, I think she's going to go down like Eleanor Roosevelt kind of thing, that later will appreciate the contributions. Eleanor Roosevelt was widely criticized when she was living, and she ended up being, I think, the first U.N. ambassador or something. Anyway, I think Hillary would like a position of something in the next Democratic administration. That's my take on it. And I think she should.

She's highly qualified and would do a great job. And she's already obviously been secretary of state. So I think that may be more of anything. But I don't think she's running in any way whatsoever. That's not the body language I got. What's interesting about her is she when you interview her it was interesting she turns away from i've interviewed three times and we get along really well and we have a good rapport but one of the things she does initially when you interview her she sort of turns away from you and towards the audience so it's hard time engaging her like so i had to really lean

in heavy with and and also but by end, she had her legs out. She was, like, relaxed, like, ready to have a whiskey. And so it got really better over the course of the interview, which I thought was great. So my theory is that every one of these people wakes up every morning, looks in the mirror, and says, hello, Madam President or Mr. President. I think they all want to be president. Yeah, she did. Yeah, she did. Yeah. Well, anyway.. Yeah, she did. Yeah.

Well, anyway. So everyone was talking about that. But let's move on to other things. There are other things. I move on from these people. I interviewed A.G. Sulzberger last week. I've got Sally Yates also this week besides Elon Musk. Hold on.

You talked to Arthur. I talked to Arthur, yeah. You interviewed Arthur? How was that? Arthur Jr. or whatever, A.G. Great. It was really great. We're going to be publishing Arthur Jr. or whatever, AG. Great. It was really great. We're going to be publishing it on the podcast.

And it was great. We parried and we went back and forth about the role of the New York Times. I tried to give him a billion dollars from Lorraine Powell Jobs and he refused to take it, which I felt was rude on his part. But otherwise, we had a good talk about where the New York Times was going. He's a really sharp young man and I think he's quite serious about running the Times as an independent operation as long as they can. Yeah, there's something in the blood of that family. You were on the board, right? Yeah, I was.

You were on the board? I was. Yeah, they kick you off? Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? Have you met me? Anyway, so— Yes, exactly.

That was why I asked the question. Did they kick you off? Say what you will about the Salzburgers. In their DNA is a commitment to journalism and a pursuit of great journalism. And they are—I didn't get along that well with his dad on a business sense. Oh, yeah. But there's just no denying that they have served. Yes.

I mean, they are an asset. They are a national treasure. They are. I had lunch with Sam Dolnick, who's the one who's behind like the Daily and some of the digital stuff last week too, which was great. And they're just a really sharp ownership. I've been lucky in my life to be – I obviously write a column for The Times. I work for the Grams family at The Washington Post and the Sulzbergers here. I contract with them in this case.

I'm not an employee of the New York Times, but I'm very lucky to have worked for two great families who really do care about journalism, and it's been a real privilege for me in that regard. So just to bring down your high, you know who I'm having lunch with tomorrow? Who? Don't take Chipotle. This is the truth.

Marvin Shankman, the publisher of Cigar Aficionado. You're the New York Times. I'm hanging out with the Rob Report. Man. Geez. I know. Sorry. All right.

Move on. Keep us moving. I'm Steve Weinstein from New York Magazine, another great publisher. Anyway. All right. So now, beyond politics and all these famous people we know and our name droppery here. Yeah. You win.

Someone the other day was like, oh, you shouldn't drop names. I'm like, all I do is interview famous people. What do you want me to do? Just say I'm talking to some guy who owns a car company today. Anyway, so let's talk about the first one, this story, which sort of got lost in the sauce, but it was a really great story, this report on Google, Google leaders' sexual

assault allegations, specifically Andy Rubin's $90 million exit package and the leaders accused of harassment that Google employed. And there's a walkout. So they're going to do a walkout to talk about this issue, including getting rid of these agreements not to say anything. And I think that's great. I think that's great within Google. So what do you make of it?

I know a lot about this story because we've written parts of it. We've written about Eric Schmidt, some issues around Eric Schmidt, definitely issues around Sergey Brin and what happened. And we also wrote about, I did, about Mamit Singhal. I actually informed Uber that he had some issues. So, and what New York Times did well was bring it all together and also had a lot of details about what went on with Andy Rubin, who was the father of Android. So, you're about to be generous and ask me what I think, and I'm going to say that I'm a not proud member of the cohort called Straight White Males who's afraid to say anything on this issue

for fear I will say something stupid, which I do on a regular basis and then ruin me in this podcast. So I'm going to kick it back to you. What have you heard? What's going on? I think the 90 million, one of the things that was really great

from this article was the amount of money they pay. We had noted that it happened with Amit Singhal when we wrote about it but didn't focus on it. And I thought the really important part was how much money these guys get to go away. And I think that was, I think, the most disturbing part of it. And I thought it was great aside from some of the like perient emails and things that they had Andy sending around. But I have a question. I just want to clarify.

I'm generally asking this to learn not to respond. But these payouts, are they payouts or are they just saying we want you to go away and rather than have this drawn out process that we may or may not be qualified to prosecute, we'll pay you what you would have received had you stayed here? Yeah, that's what they're doing.

Yeah, that's what they're doing to keep it quiet. And then they do these arbitration agreements where there's silence everywhere. It doesn't – you know what? It's just – it's ridiculous. They should just fire people. I know there's legal issues. Fire them for cause. Just say sorry.

You just can't do this. But the problem is it goes up pretty high. I mean, you know, and it gets complicated too. You know, it gets complicated is what it was. It is because, you know, like with Sergey, which we wrote about quite a lot, it was a consensual relationship, but it also was a work relationship. But it was also – so not everything fits into these easy buckets for any of these things. And so that's what makes it difficult here. But I think these payments are – when they are doing these investigations really do shine a bad light on these companies,

these enormous payments. Workplaces are complicated places. I'm not letting off sexual harassers anyway, but they're complicated. And so it's the money that really, to me, what I thought the Times did a favor, and the writers there who worked on that, did a real service in showing that this is what, they sort of sweep these things under the table.

I think that's what, I think the – I think that was the most problematic thing is not the full disclosure, not explaining it, not discussing it, and keeping it from people and not allowing people to talk about these things, arbitration agreements or whatever, the kind of things. And I thought that was really a fantastic part of that piece. And what do you think of the concept of an employee walkout? It's like, well, we don't want to give up the free food and the options we're getting, but we're going to walk out. We'll take kombucha as we walk out the door. I think it just says to these companies, I mean, what's interesting that's happening is a lot of these employees are starting to speak up,

whether it be on drones for the Defense Department or working for ICE or this kind of thing or immigration. This is the base of these companies. I hate to use that horrible term, the base. I hate the base anymore. But it gets thrown about because I think people are more complicated than they just walk in lockstep with people. But I think these companies have to pay attention to their employees and their desires. And it's going to be really hard because there's going to be a lot of different desires up and down the, you know what I mean?

There's not just liberals there. There's conservatives. There's all kinds of things. So it's kind of, companies are going to have to start saying who they are pretty clearly, even if they don't want to. So that's the issue.

Doesn't it just kind of suck to be a grownup and part of cashing someone else's check is someone above you gets to make the decision. If you don't like it, you get to leave the firm. But these lockouts? Right, that is absolutely true. Yeah, I don't know. Come Yes, it does. If someone above you gets to make the decision, if you don't like it, you get to leave the firm. Right, that is absolutely true. Yeah, I don't know. Come on, come on. Like unions have been hollowed out.

Everything, I like a good protest. Oh, come on. I'm good with it. You're equating a Google full stack engineer that makes $400,000 a year with a union employee?

I just, you know what? Anyone that wants to protest, I'm good with it and say something, I'm good with it. You can't like, rich people can protest. Rich people can protest. I think it's for and say something. I'm good with it. You can't like – rich people can protest. Rich people can protest.

I think it's for a good reason and I think it's a good point. And I like – I think, for example, those protests in Pittsburgh over the Trump visit were very – exactly the kind of thing you have to do. Not to generate into violence but to say your piece because words matter. And I like that. Thank you very much. This is a message from your union representative. But get to the, what is it about Google employees in particular?

Because I keep hearing about Google employees who are comfortable trying to break into China, but they don't want to work for the U.S. Defense Department. It seems like Google employees are especially, I don't know what the term is, persnickety or irritated. They're persnickety. They've been allowed to be persnickety for most, you know, years ago when I covered Google, I covered it from almost the garage period. It was in Susan Wojcicki's garage.

They were able to like speak up. They had these meetings on Fridays where Sergey and Larry let them just yell at them. It was really quite something to see at the time. And I used to really enjoy going to them when they used to let me. But it was, you know, everything. Like, I don't like the chicken fricassee. I don't like, and it wasn't chicken fricassee. It was more like, you know, whatever.

Why don't we have enough food? We don't have enough food from Bali. Like, oh, yeah, we got to get the Balinese food in here. You know, they would complain about everything. And they have all these message boards there. It's a crazy amount of message boards where everyone sounds off on every single thing, which is a joy for reporters. But if there was lawsuits against Google, the discovery would just be fantastic in terms of what they put up on these boards. And there's all ways to communicate. And Google's always

been like that. That's been a part I really like about Larry and Sergey's personalities is that nothing is off the table in terms of discussing. Other companies are much different, but that one, it's a real blabby culture. So you see it as a feature, not a bug. You think it's a good thing about the culture? I like it. I like it. You know, I like it.

Some of them are really irritating, but that's okay. I don't mind irritating people. That's why I do this podcast with you. There you go. Oh, did I just say that out loud? Ba-boom. All right. We're going to take, we can talk about other things, but I think that was a good little talk. We're going to take a quick break. But first, in this next advertiser segment brought to you by QuickBooks, we'll hear from a business owner who turned their side hustle into a full-time career.

career. 78% of small businesses in the U.S. have a workforce of one, but it's not easy turning your skills, your passion, yourself into a business. Here's the story of one guy, Nat, who never backed down and turned his side hustle into his full-time gig. Nat's story is brought to you by QuickBooks. My name is Nat. I teach yoga and I share music for a living. The job I had right before making this leap into teaching was working for a large tech company. I was leading a retreat over in Hawaii, and I think it just clicked. I can do this for a living. There were fears about where I'm at with that career.

You know, if I step out now, will I be able to get back in? You know, those moments of fear, I had to just be honest with them and say, I trust this. I mean, it's a total trip to turn yourself into a business. And you have to be confident enough to say, here's who I am and here's what I offer. I don't want to get into the mindset of, oh my God, my money, my money. So I use smarter business tools to really kind of check my cash flow and also for tax preparation. That gives me the comfort I need. It's a reminder for me every single time I teach

that this life is so short and you got to go out there and just do it. You got to live it up. QuickBooks knows you never back down. That's why they're in your corner with smarter business tools. QuickBooks, backing you. Learn more at QuickBooks.com. This has been advertiser content. Learn more at QuickBooks.com. This has been advertiser content. I still don't have a Porsche from last week. But what else failed this week? Your failure to get me a Porsche. So still working on a Porsche. There is no substitute, by the way. So anyways, and by the way, your Fiesta is headed to the junk heap.

Your Porsche would be headed to a museum. It's such a good car. And they'd be like, this is what Kara Switzer drove. Anyway. I'm driving my Fiesta to visit Elon Musk, just so you know. That's how that's going down. Anyway. Go ahead. Move along.

So I go on Fox. I was one of the 89% of Manhattanites that voted for Hillary. I was totally flummoxed by the results and decided I need to get out of my bubble. And the way I get out of my bubble and touch red states, Kara, is I go on Fox once a week. Oh, good. Because you walk over to the Fox network. Where is it? On 57th Street? Where is it? 1251 6th Avenue. And I generally find- Of course it is. Oh, right. I used to work for the Wall Street Journal. Of course I know that., right. I used to work for the Wall Street Journal. Of course I know that. Yeah. That was actually my first job was Morgan Stanley right next door.

But anyways. I was trying to erase it from my brain. I'm on Varney and Co. Stuart Varney. I go on Cavuto with Neil Cavuto. Hello. Yeah. Who else?

What was that noise? Can you make that noise again? That's his noise. Stuart Varney. I think they're both thoughtful people. I'm sorry. What's the other one you go on? What's that?

Who else do you? Varney and who else? Cavuto, Neil Cavuto. Oh, yeah, he's smart. He can be smart. He can be smart. I like that Shep Smith. He looks like he's in pain every day of the week there. He's like, no, they're not a caravan.

No, he just keeps trying really hard to push back the ocean of bile that comes out of him. Anyways, I like them. They're nice to me. They describe me. They introduced me as a socialist, which kind of pisses me off, but they say I'm their least hated. You're not a socialist. Literal, they're super nice to me. And I went on, and I talked about Facebook, and they asked me to talk about Facebook management.

And I said that I thought Zuckerberg and Sandberg would go down as one of the most damaging and destructive or damaging and dangerous management teams in the history of business. Now, past judgment on Sheryl Sandberg. Yeah. She's supposed to be the adult in the room that really organizes Facebook. What kind of a job is she doing? An inspiring individual who's written eloquently on personal loss and the important discussion around gender equality in the workplace will go down in history as one of the most dangerous, damaging executives in the history of business. What has she done to Facebook?

Well, you've heard the term lipstick on a pig. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are lipstick on cancer. This has been an organization that has trafficked in content or enabled content for ethnic cleansing. These are apps that make our teens depressed. This is a company that has run unfettered and killed other companies. This is a company that, because it refuses to screen content and do anything that gets in the way of its supernova business model, has threatened democracies and elections. If these individuals weren't so likable, they would have been out a long time ago, and district attorneys would be talking about bringing charges of criminal negligence against them. Wow, Scott.

What do you really think? Yeah, right? So anyways, and then I want to talk about I thought Google should be broken up, blah, blah, blah, my usual rap. Your whole thing. Your whole jam. As these guys do. They posted the video on YouTube. You did the Scott's greatest hits, right?

You did the Scott's greatest hits. There you go. Okay, go ahead. So they posted it on YouTube and got about 10,000 views. No big deal. But I looked at the comments and there were 83 comments. And the 30 comments, the top comments, the ones that got the most upvotes, of those 30 comments, 50% were either misogynistic or just blatantly anti-Semitic. Yeah.

Welcome to YouTube comments. Really, really, really vile shit. I mean just kind of rattling. And it really got me thinking. And the question I'm going to present to you, and I'm doing a lot of soul searching around this, or what for me constitutes a lot of soul searching, hashtag hi with Elon Musk. But anyways, so is it Fox? Does Fox—first off, who are these people?

Is it that Fox attracts people who have more anti-Semitic tendencies? Is it people who are weaponizing the Fox platform because they believe they can wreak and sow havoc? Is it bad actors coming in who aren't who they say they are? What is going on here? And then who is responsible? Is it Fox who should not – who should take this content down? Is it YouTube who should do a better job of employing some sort of basic algorithm when it sees a string of words to say, sorry, we're taking this down? Or is it the man in the mirror? Have I crossed from being provocative to incendiary?

Am I walking into a room that's knee-deep in gasoline and passing out lighters? Ah, well, that's a big question, Scott. I think it's all your fault, actually. No, I don't. Here's the deal. Ah, well, that's a big question, Scott. I think it's all your fault, actually. No, I don't. Here's the deal. I think Fox News has done more to bring this culture and country down than any media organization. I think in history we will look at this as, you know, Rupert Murdoch has really done damage to the soul of this country by showing, by inflaming people and bringing out our worst tendencies. I believe that.

It's one of the reasons I don't work for them. I never will work for them. And so I think that's sort of table stakes as far as I'm concerned. In this case, they put it up on YouTube, which is what they should do. They have a network. That's what networks do. So I don't think there's anything wrong with them doing that, nor do I think they should take it down.

I think that's not – like you didn't do anything crazy. You just had a segment, right? So I don't think there's anything wrong with putting it up. I think YouTube's, what happened to you on YouTube is so common on YouTube. It's crazy. It's every, they have not been able to get their hands around these comments. Part of me, Susan Wojcicki, who runs YouTube, I know very well. I've bugged her about this like crazy.

When I used to search, at one point I searched ADL, which is Anti-Defamation League, and the first 20 videos were anti-Semitic. And over at Google, when you search, it's a clean search. Google searches cleanly. Like you do ADL and you get ADL stuff, you know? And so I think it's, and I always joke with her. I'm like, you know, you're owned by this search company that was started in your garage. You might want to get your search better. And she's trying very hard. But I think they have to do something about the comments because they are vile. If you put up like a, I don't know, just a squirrel video, you get horrible comments. It's a real problem there. It's the inability to monitor that. So I blame YouTube the most. And from your point of view, no, I think you're saying things that are very strong and having opinions.

And in the old days, which was like two weeks ago, you could say things like that and have a civil discussion about it. Because I don't think you were saying anything that wasn't unusual. Like people – I wrote that in The Times this week. You saw my piece. I was angry, Cara. You know, talking about the blame that we need to put on these companies. It's a shame really because they do not—they've weaponized everything. They've amplified everything, and they're not doing anything to fix it.

And they created—they designed these systems so that the hate is easily facilitated while the good gets zoned out. And so, you know, it's a bigger, bigger issue, but it's a combination, I think, of cable platforms, especially Fox. And, you know, I don't want to leave the others out of it, but Fox is really way down that road. And then how they handle comments and everything else on these social platforms like YouTube, like Twitter, and everything else. And, you know, do you watch Fox regularly? Do you watch it regularly? No, I don't. I mean, only when I'm on it because I'm a narcissist, but I don't. And, you know, do you watch Fox regularly? Do you watch it regularly? No, I don't. I mean, only when I'm on it because I'm a narcissist, but I don't.

Right, of course. I don't watch a whole lot of business television, to be honest. Well, one year, one time last year, there was a snowstorm in New York and I was at my mom's apartment. So I was stuck in the apartment for like 24 hours, essentially. And my mom watches Fox News on fast repeat all day long. And literally by hour 12, I was homicidal, like listening to it. It was just – and I wasn't even listening.

I was like, who do I hate? Like, you know what I mean? Like it was really – you know, and I think the same things that happen within – people, of course, should look in the mirror and blame themselves. But this stuff is designed to addict you, to inflame you. The way it is designed is to facilitate virality and engagement. Are we talking about Facebook, Twitter, or Fox? All of them. All of them.

I think they all have the similar things. I think they go in lockstep with each other. And I think that's the problem is that we've got cable news. We've got a president who uses both of these things. If you think about it, he's great on Fox and he's great on Twitter, right? You know what I mean? And then we have these platforms that have not done anything responsible that a responsible media company should do. So therefore, that's my rant. There's no doubt that we like to think that connecting the world is a good thing,

but the reality is the species is pretty tribal. The problem is when you connect them and let them enter into these hermetically sealed cohorts where the underlying engine of the fuel tries to figure out if you lean left or right and then push you further and further left or further and further right such that you can begin hating each other. And the reality is rage is incredibly powerful to increase engagement clicks in Nissan. Sure. If the pillars, as Nicole Wong talked about, are engagement, virality, and speed, that's what you're going to get. If you change it to accuracy, context, and other things, it changes. You can help people be better people. You can always help people be, you know, don't act like beasts, essentially. And so, you know, I don't know, like the fork helped us do that.

There's all kinds of tools that allow people to be better people. And so, you know, this stuff is hard to resist. And there's been a lot of like really good articles about how hard this is to resist, how hard it is not to have to pull away from it. And when you have your leaders like pushing it out all the time, it's super hard not to feel sick to your stomach almost consistently. And that's what they want. They want us to be fearful, hateful, and hungry so that we eat sugar. You know what I mean? Like it literally is like – I hate to sound like Michael Moore here.

It's a great business model. Yeah, it's a great business model. Fox tapped into it. Now I would argue MSNBC, which I watch, but they're envious of Fox's business model, and they say pretty – I don't want to call them incendiary, but provocative things. They are. They were doing the Hillary thing over and over. And I kept tweeting, hey, that's not what she said. And I work for MSNBC. I mean, I have a contract with them to do longer specials. But I was like, a lot of their, some of their people, their correspondents,

I was like, that's not what happened, people. And it was still, you know, again, it's just in order to create, I don't know, create constant engagement in a way that's not. You know how I think you solve the YouTube problem? I think it's super easy. I think you shut it down for a week. I think the Senate Intelligence Committee and a senator says a bill that this platform is a national security risk. Well, okay, hold on. It's a national security risk.

Close it down for five days. They'll figure it out. They'll figure it out. I don't know. I always thought Facebook, that would have been a great grand, I love grand gestures and I thought it would have been a grand gesture on Facebook's part

to shut it down for a week after Cambridge Analytica. That would have been something else. We need to figure this out. We need to figure this out. Any wins this week, Scott? And then we got to get to predictions. We got to get out of here.

So you're going to make fun of me, but my win of the week is Love as expressed by Sandra Day O'Connor. And she's catalyzed a really interesting conversation around the difference between old and young love. Young love is mostly you love someone else to get something in return. And Sandra Day O'Connor was very open about her husband who's suffering from dementia. And one day she showed up and he was with another woman holding her hand and in love with her. And she talked very openly about old love is your capacity to just care for someone else and be concerned with their happiness.

And, you know, first Supreme – female Supreme Court justice in a later stage of her life talking about just an incredibly moving and important discussion about what it means to really love someone. And it was an inspiring article. Oh, Scott. Isn't that nice? What are you doing? Now you're surprising me. I'm a delicate little flower. But it's a wonderful article.

I always like Sandy Day. And you have kids. I've decided I'm segmenting love. I'm in market. There's young love. There's the love you get when you're a kid when you just get unconditional love from your caregivers and grandparents. There's transactional love when you're an adult where you want other love back or sex or intimacy or companionship. And then there's kind of this complete eternal love where you just decide to give in to caring for someone else.

Oh, my God. And I just decided. Louise, Oprah. Okay. I've just decided that this win, this woman bringing up eternal love and showing us how rewarding it is. I'm going to call Oprah for lunch in a minute. That's my next lunch. And I'm not even high today, Kara.

I didn't even drink today. All right. I love this. New York Times article, Sandra Day O'Connor talking about old love. All right. Fantastic. Also, there was a really good New York Times. Top that, Kara.

Maggie Hamerman's piece with Barbara Streisand talking about pancakes and Trump. I just, I love Maggie Haberman. She's a friend of mine. And she wrote a fantastic piece about Barbara Streisand and her new album, which is an anti-Trump album, essentially. And it was just literally, there's this whole thing about healthy pancakes at the end that I just wanted to like. It was chef's kiss of a piece. That's what I would say. Do you know Barbara Streisand? She called me once years ago to talk about internet stocks out of the blue. I thought it was my mother playing a joke on me,

but it was in fact Barbara Streisand. Probably the best voice of the 20th century. Like butter. I mean, just butter is delicious on pancakes, by the way. Anyway, so predictions, let's do predictions. And then we got to go. Scott, I got things to do. I got to take my staff out to lunch and et cetera, et cetera. What predictions? Give me your predictions. The elections are coming.

When we come back, we will know the end of the story. So I just couldn't have been more wrong around anything political. So I'm staying away from that. 2020, I've decided—I'm sorry, 2019, maybe by the end of 2020, Amazon is going to prophylactically spin AWS, which will be one of the 10 most valuable companies on the IPO. I like it. The guy who runs it's really, Andy Jassy is really interesting. I like him a lot. That's interesting. That's probably exactly what's going to happen. I like that idea, because then they're going to do it so they don't get it done to them, right?

Get out ahead. He's smarter than us. He is. He really is. By the way, think about what genius move this is, Kara, because how do you play the cloud right now? Now the red hot is taken off the table. The only way to play the cloud is to climb through a software company. But hold on. Red hot is hot.

You're diverted by hot. Back to my original question. If you're an investor, how do you play the cloud? What's a pure play cloud company right now to invest in? Yeah, that's true. There is none. Amazon, that's actually, Scott, that's brilliant. It's another brilliant Amazon insight.

It's the fastest, most profitable, interesting part of technology right now, and there's no way to play it. A pure play cloud company, much less the market leader. Oh, my gosh. You want to talk about a multiple of revenues crazy valuation? Yeah. They're just running circles around Google. Now they have Amazon Media Group to shuffle profits to subsidize the retail platform so they can put all 11 million retail employees out of business.

So it used to be AWS subsidizing the retail platform so they could dump retail the same way the Chinese dump steel into America. But, you know, we call it innovation, not dumping. Now they have AMG. Scott, they're only 1% of retail according to Amazon. Go ahead. That's their thing. They've gotten so many emails from them. They're 50% of e-commerce.

But anyways, a third of cloud, 80% of wealthy households, prime. I could go on. But I think Bezos is going to spin AWS. Genius move in my opinion. I think that's brilliant, and I think you're right. I think that's 100% right. I think I will leave you with that prediction. I do not know what's going to happen in the midterm election. I'm not going to even say because I don't want to be wrong.

So we will see. What's your prediction? I don't get to be wrong in isolation. I think you are correct about this Amazon thing. You're the prediction guy. I don't make predictions. I just do crazy streets and rants. Election's coming up in a week.

I don't know if we're going to— What do you think is going to happen? House, Senate? What do you think is going to happen? No idea. No idea, but I would like Stacey Abrams to be the first African-American woman to be the governor of Georgia that week. Impressive person. I've had her on the podcast.

Ugh, I love her. She's amazing. Impressive person. She's amazing and deserves it, and that guy who's running against her is just awful. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. It's a critical, as Hillary said, it's the most critical election, the most consequential election happening in our history,

in our recent history. And I would agree with you. It'll matter. If they don't win the House, it'll be Trump crazy for a long time, and I think we'll all regret, especially the stuff around that he's now saying about birthright. And it just goes on. You know, it just goes on. By the way, you know who I have a crush on? I'm curious to see what you think is this Beto guy. Oh, my gosh. Beto. Yeah. Everyone has a crush on Beto. Oh, my goodness. Supposedly even Ted

Cruz has a crush on him and keeps pulling a bump on his tablet and staring at him. This guy, I think, by the way, you want to talk about him to me? I think he could be president even if he loses this election. I think we should just vote him coolest dude, dude in chief kind of thing. That hair. He really is cool. Even the way he sweats is kind of dreamy. He just literally just sweats like crazy.

This is getting weird, isn't it? Is this getting weird? So we're going to pull out. Pull out, Scott. Okay. Beto, Scott. I'm going to get you a Beto t-shirt. Where's the ripcord?

I am so into this guy. I'm seriously thinking of flying to Texas. All right. And scene. Okay. Oh, my gosh. It's a great gay, non-gay love story that we're going to move on from. Ooh.

That guy in the Fiesta. Imagine it. Imagine it. Yes, he has a Fiesta. He drives around, he drives in a similar, like, it's like a Corolla. It's in that genre of car. So, you know what I mean? You don't like mine, but you like Beto's just because he's Beto.

Also his name, Beto. I mean, them on the debate stage, it's like I look at him, like, I'm so hot. And then I look at Cruz, and I'm like, no, I'm not. I mean, it's like, it at him like I'm so hot and then I look at Cruz and I'm like, no, I'm not. I mean, it's like it's literally like the X and Y of something. Literally the only thing people of all sides – I told you I was in Washington and I was at a dinner party and everyone's like, the only thing people can agree on is we all hate Ted Cruz. It was very funny. He's probably going to win. That's what they say.

That's what the polls are saying. Oh, more Ted Cruz. What can we do? Oh, well. This is our cross to bear. Anyway. Scott, did we miss anything? I think we're fine.

You, me, Elon, Zach Braff in South Beach. Think about it. Think about it. Beto has to be there. It literally sounds like a bad, bad gay sitcom. All right, Scott, thanks.

I'm looking forward to talking next week. By the way, if you have questions for us or stuff you'd like to hear us cover on the podcast, shoot us an email at pivot at voxmedia.com. Our show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. And thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. Join us next week for more breakdown on all things tech and business. And if you like what you heard, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.

This is Scott Galloway. I founded nine businesses, and eight of those nine businesses, a key partner has been QuickBooks, which enables the management team to focus on the levers of really driving value and also provides a dashboard to gain insight into the key operations and finances of the company. QuickBooks has been a pillar of my entrepreneurial efforts. Check out QuickBooks.com.