Pivot - Sheryl Sandberg's Next Move

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Elon Musk orders Tesla executives back to the office, Texas's social media law goes back on ice, and the FTC sets its sights on Amazon. Sheryl Sandberg announces she's leaving Meta (née Facebook). Kara and Scott predict what's next for tech's most famous COO. Send us your Listener Mail questions (especially if they're about dating!) by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. So, Scott, how was your long weekend? It was wonderful. So, I had the boys in New York, and it was sort of a contrast in the difference between having an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old son. I wanted to spend time with each of them alone, so I took my 14-year-old son for brunch. And his favorite thing to do now with me is to try and just get through time with me and then ask if he can leave early and go home on his own. He loves to go take the subway. Even if it's just walking ahead of me 100 meters, like before even the check gets there, he's like, can I go home? He's waiting the whole lunch to go home.

And then in contrast, and this is wonderful, my 11-year-old said, I want to go to the edge, which is this observatory deck at the top of Hudson Yards. And we go to this, take this elevator up. And he's like, oh, my gosh, look at the elevator. Look at the videos and everything. And we go there, and there's this thing where they have a clear cellophane or clear plastic or glass floor where you stare down 100 stories. Cellophane would suck. And he lays down. He's like, oh, my God. Lay down next to me. Cellophane would suck. And he literally has cellophane. And he lays down.

He's like, oh, my God. Lay down next to me. We'll get a picture. This will be awesome. And then we sit there. He looks around. And we're 110 floors up. And he says, can I have a Coke?

And I'm like, what the hell? Go get a Coke. Gets a Coke. Comes over. Sits down. And he looks at me. And he means this. He's like, isn't this awesome?

And it's just like, I have one 14-year-old who nothing impresses him, and I have an 11-year-old, and everything just impresses him. So I'm really trying to lean in and enjoy and not take for granted the wonder. It shifts back and forth. It shifts back and forth. It shifts back and forth. It shifts back and forth. It's shooting one way with a 14-year-old. It's shooting towards how do I get away from you.

That'll go for a while. Yeah, I think you'll get over that in about 20 years. No, way before that. No, I had a great weekend in San Francisco with Louie. Would you guys do? We love spending time together. Not recently, but the last time. He's in the woods right now.

Louie's in the woods. You know, we hung out. We went out. We walked around. We had dinner. We hang. We like each other. We like, just like I hang with Dr. Swisher this week, my brother.

Oh, by the way, by the way. Let's discuss that. Hold on. He's left you. Hold on. He's broken up with you. Your brother is having an affair with my boyfriend. George has moved on.

I find out. For a better man. On Twitter. For a better man. That your brother, a doctor that I cannot compete with, is spending Sundays with my boyfriend. They went walking today, I think. I think they went walking in the park today. Yeah.

That's got to stop. Okay, I'm just saying. It's a second date. That's got to stop. He also shaved. Jeff had a beard. We went to Annapolis this week because my aunt got real sick, so we couldn't go out to West Virginia. But we went on a boat and stuff like that.

And he had this beard, this sort of old man, John Stewart-y beard. And he shaved it off. I was like, where'd the beard go for brunch? He's looking good. He cleaned himself up for George Hahn. Just FYI. What I'm stuck on is I've never heard anyone in a disappointed tone say, we couldn't go to West Virginia. I've never heard anyone say that in the say, we couldn't go to West Virginia.

I've never heard anyone say that in the exact tone you just said it. Well, I love my aunt. I wanted to see my aunt. I wanted to see my aunt. But anyways, tell your brother, hands off my man. No. Hands off my man. It's so exciting. They're going to have a Hamptons wedding, and then you and I will preside over it, obviously.

You know what I mean? We'll have to be the presiders. It'll be great. I think Jeff's wife would be kind of pissed. She's fantastic. It is just hilarious. Are you gay? Are you gay?

Are you sure you're not gay? I'm not gay. Anyway. Your wife's so pretty. You have sex with her? I'm like, every summer solstice, like clockwork. Yes, indeed. And in any case, Jeff and I are going to my nephew's wedding this weekend, along with my mother, everybody.

We're all coming together, my ex-wife, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, today we'll talk about the surprise announcement from Sheryl Sandberg, which I just hold back just for a second, okay? We're not going to get to that yet. We'll look at the FTC's pursuit of Amazon. Also, we'll take a listener question about innovation. But first, an economic hurricane is coming, according to Jamie Dimon. He made the comments at a conference this week. He says the company's praying for, quote, bad outcomes. What the hell, Jamie Dimon? Speaking of someone who's presided over some bad outcomes, what in the world does he mean? What do you think? I like Jamie Dimon a lot. I think he's one of the few leaders who calls it as he sees it. And even if it costs him, he was one of

the first guys, he said it before it was cool, in the midst of the euphoria that I think crypto is something near a scam. He's like, we got to play in it. I get it. We have to make some bets in case I'm wrong. But I just don't. He basically said, I just don't get it. And he wasn't afraid to say that. I think a lot of us, especially of a certain age, feel bullied into like saying, well, there's got to be innovation here, even if we don't think that. And at the same time. Oh, I do think that.

But I'm sorry. But go ahead. Even at the same time, if we do think, you know, we do think there's likely something there, the people who think it's a total scam get angry. There's no being in the middle. And I think Jamie Dimon is unafraid to call out stuff. And by the way, he's right. He said something that I thought was— He also has done some deals.

Come on. Jamie Dimon's right in the middle of a couple of bad, like a ton of bad internet deals. I know we know. someone said, what is a recession? And he said, something that happens every seven years. And it's been 13 years. And he's just looking at economic history and saying, when interest rates are this historically low and inflation is this historically high, and you have inflation, I mean, he just looks at all the numbers and goes, how do the instruments here read anything but bad weather ahead? And he's not afraid to say that. Because what's unfortunate, people are giving Janet Yellen shit. And the reality is she said, I was wrong about inflation.

And I love that when a politician or a political appointee actually has the backbone to say, yeah, I got it wrong. You just don't hear that anymore. And you don't hear heads of investment banks or people in finance doing anything but being cheerleaders anymore, which is not healthy. So anyways, I agree with him. And I think, as usual, Jamie Dimon is calling it as he sees it. Nonetheless, what has bad outcomes made from your perspective? Well, the bad, I mean, everyone's wondering now whether it's going to be a soft or a hard landing

and how bad could it get. And you've seen periods where the market has gone flat to down for 10 years. Housing starts or housing is already cooling off really fast. It's gone from white hot to hot to looking like it's going cold really quickly because of increasing mortgage rates. I mean, spending down, debt up, the S word, stagflation, where you have both higher prices and a lack of productivity. I mean, this could get – and I wonder if it's a good thing, Cara. I think we need a little of the underbrush. You always like a little cleanup, don't you? You like a little cleanse.

Well, here's the thing. Young people need their shot. And when you prop up the economy artificially and you artificially keep assets and real estate artificially high. All you're doing is transferring opportunity from young people. The reason— Well, you talked about that with the stimulus. You said it keeps businesses that shouldn't be in business in business, although this was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of situation. Well, the whole thing was pitched as we're building bridges to the other side. No, they weren't.

They were building piers for bad businesses, and they were putting gold-plated, you know, 14-karat gold-plated on the bridges that were going to survive anyways. And most of the money ended up in the market. Savings went up. And now we have a bunch of zombie companies that had no business being in business. Anyway, I think we really got the stimulus wrong. But we're in for a rough ride. We'll see how rough. And you know what?

It's a good thing. It's part of the cycle of the economy. It's not, as long as it's not like a crazy hard landing. The cycle of the economy. It's the circle of life. Circle of life. There you go. The hurricane comes and clears out the savannah.

There you go. Is there hurricanes on the savannah? I don't know. I don't care about mixing metaphors. All right, Jamie Dimon, we'll see what happens. It's a pretty good bet. I don't think it's the most shocking prediction at all. Anyway, a Texas law that regulates

how social networks moderate content is on hold again after the Supreme Court blocked it on Tuesday. It's waiting. It's not the end of it. The Federal Appeals Court will consider the law soon and could return it to the Supreme Court. But they didn't sound too pleased with it, none too pleased with it.

It was interesting. And it was a weird amalgamation of people on either side of it. It was not what you'd think from a political point of view. What thinks you of this? Let me, to be honest, Cara, I have a view on it, but it's an uninformed view. And I think your view is probably more informed. You go first here. I think these are private companies.

They can do as they damn well please. 100%. That's what I think. That's all. I don't think if the government, government can't make companies take up or put down or keep up anything. They can decide if owners, like say Elon Musk, wants to let all hell break loose and all this shit flying. He can have a shitty flying social media site.

If he doesn't, he doesn't. That's, I don't know. I just feel like companies have free speech too, and they can do whatever they want. And so it's appropriate that the Supreme Court blocks this if they believe in free speech. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think free speech is absolute. Is spreading misinformation the result of an economic or personal harm around health care, around serving people content that turns them into radical fundamentalists or whatever it might be? I think if Texas had said, look, you've got to be subject to the same liability laws as the rest of our media companies here, that's one thing.

But this was purely political. It's we don't like the fact we're going to politicize and create this – foment this falsehood that you are moderating conservative content. And all the research actually shows if there is a bias to these algorithms, it's bias toward elevating conservative content because conservative content – and again, I don't think these companies or algorithms are inherently malicious, but what you find is the truly crazy shit on the right from Representatives Gosar or Taylor Greene

is so incendiary and so stupid. Did you hear? We're not going to have any straight people in a few years. All I do is make straight people. I find that.

Did you see she said that? Well, I'll come back to that. There is some, there is. I know. My son you see she said that? Whatever. Well, I'll come back to that. There is some... I know. My son did the same thing with me. Go ahead. Well, if you look at every generation, more and more people are reporting they're gay. Supposedly by 2050, we're all going to be gay. Maybe they were quiet before. If you read Secret City, a new book about Washington and gayness, they kept it to themselves. Maybe they were. There were lots of gays around before.

Anyway, please proceed. I think there's some of that, but I also think that for the first time in a long time in certain metros, that it's not only not discriminated, it's almost become a little bit fashionable. And I think it's a worthwhile conversation. And I'm about to trigger a bunch of people from Wokestan.

Yes, you are. I had this dinner conversation last night with my son. Go ahead. I'd love to hear your view on it. Well, it was interesting. He was showing, and then he moved into plastics in the water supply.

But nonetheless, we told him about the Marjorie Taylor Greene thing and he goes, actually, statistically, there are more, you know, and then he was bringing out all his statistics.

Do you know what percentage of the population supposedly is gay according to Pew and confidential surveys? Well, that declare gay, that declare themselves gay. And I do agree

that people are being more fluid, gender fluid and that stuff like that. I think it was not allowed forever. Agreed. And there was so many people pushing down. And there were more people who, when they had the consideration of it, think about it in a different way. So I think that's one thing. The second thing is a lot of people say they're gay and they're not. I mean, they can decide anything they want.

Like, you know what I mean? I had a relative, I had a nephew who said, you know, I'm gay. And I'm like, do you sleep with men? And he's like, no, I do not. But I declare myself gay. And I was like, no, what? Like, I felt like an old, like, bitty, essentially. And, you know, I think there's a lot more.

He was going out with a woman and they both declared themselves gay. And I sort of, I just, I felt like a very old gay person. I agree, more people, especially where there is more tolerance, but I bet the same is done privately, and maybe people are repressed or even afraid to tell an anonymous survey, but generally speaking, the research to date shows that the public believes there are more gay people than there are. percentage of the population that identifies as gay is around 5%. And again, I'm opening myself up here because in terms of influence over industries, gay people over index in industries that have an outsized influence in our society. And I'm making a generalization and a stereotype here, but in terms of urban centers and media that have a disproportionate amount of influence. Why wouldn't we go there? Well, 100%. But the moment you say anything that says this group is distinct and might behave differently, you open yourselves to criticism. But the reality is most people overestimate the actual number or percentage of the population that is gay.

Yeah. I think it's just there's more fluid. You know, you have someone like Harry Styles, you know, who— or, you know, Madonna's son looked fantastic in this dress that she used to wear. And there's a lot of—you know, Harry Styles, he's just something different. I think there's a lot of different expressions going on in certain centers. And it becomes fashionable, yes, but it's also fantastic. I agree.

On the whole, it's a good thing. Linda Carter today was talking, she was the original Wonder Woman, was like, if you don't think she's a lesbian icon, maybe it wasn't written as such. She is. She was like, this is the truth. And everyone was going back and forth. Wonder Woman? Linda Carter is a lesbian icon? No, no, no. Wonder Woman was a lesbian icon. You're not a lesbian. She was a lesbian icon for a lot of people, especially the Amazons, the whole outfits, the whole thing. We all loved it.

And so she was talking about that. It's Pride Month and stuff. And so it was just interesting, the reaction back and forth. It's like, I think people are just being more open-minded about stuff. I would recommend this book, Secret City, by James Kerchak. He works for Tablet, I think, a more conservative gay guy. And really, I did a Q&A with him. It's really quite good about the hiding. And it brought back to mind a lot of hiding, myself included, because I wanted

to go into military intelligence, and I couldn't way back when until they changed a lot of things. Anyhow, I don't know how we got on this from social media. Social media sites should be able to put up whatever they want and take it down. And we can complain about it. And be liable for it. And be liable for it. And we can bitch at them and call them amplified weaponization. And there should be privacy laws and stuff.

But Texas has no fucking business being in the censorship business. Pure politicization. And 7 out of 10 most traffic sites on social media. I can't get off the gay thing. Let me just go back to it. All right. You know what I hope? I hope we get to a point soon where you are in terms of fluidity, non-binary, binary, gay, straight.

It goes way down in terms of the stack ranking for identifying somebody. Yeah, I agree. That it just becomes, yeah, but it's not, I feel like right now it's become the number one or number two thing in terms of how you identify somebody. And at some point it just needs to be, yeah, they're this and it doesn't really matter. I don't. Straight people are still fascinated. I hate to tell you, I'm always get, how did you have kids? Like all the time I go for fuck's sake, with my tummy, with my tummy, with my uterus, with my uterus, I had a baby. I've made so many good lesbian friends because of you. One of the many things I, one of the many wonderful things I get from our friendship is that I have women who happen to be lesbian reaching out to me and establishing one woman who's a fairly well-known and a fantastic journalist. It's been so kind to me because of my relationship with you,

and I've established kind of a nice friendship. You have opened up so many nice friendships for me. I'm being very sincere. You're a lesbian. Well, now you've lost George Kahn, so I don't know what to say. That bitch, Dr. Swisher. You stay away from my brother. I'll tell you if I have to pick, I'm going to pick Jeffrey Swisher.

Anyway, Elon Musk is calling. He's a very handsome man. He's a wonderful guy, and he's great. And he's a doctor. I can't compete with that. No, he's a really good doctor, too. Anyway, Elon Musk is calling Tesla's employees back to the office. The Tesla CEO told employees that they should spend a minimum of 40 hours per week in the office or quit.

These are top employees, actually. He doubled down on Twitter, saying employees who want to work from home should, quote, pretend to work somewhere else. This made me laugh, I have to say. That was funny. I mean, he really, I kind of am with him on that one. I got to say, he said if the factory workers got to be there, they have to be there. And I kind of loved it. I kind of am with him on that one. I got to say, he said, if the factory workers got to be there, they have to be there. And I kind of loved it. I kind of loved it.

I don't like all his other ridiculous pontificating on whatever subject of the moment, whether it's like trans fat or whatever. Now he's commenting on everything. But this one, I think he's correct about. What do you think? Yeah, look, I had the same reaction. I'm on Team Elon. I think there's certain industries and manufacturing is one of them.

We're really not on Team Elon, but in this one we are. Yeah. Okay. It's impossible to make a car, almost impossible from home. Yeah. And if the factory workers, the frontline workers need to be there, the managers and the marketers need to be there. Having said that, I can't imagine that people didn't immediately point out the irony. Like, not only are you not here, but you've decided you can be the CEO of another company. Is anybody else allowed to be the CEO of another company? Yes.

No. He is. No, he's unique, though. He's unique. Come on. Come on. Well, I get it. But look, let me go back to my original statement.

And by the way, speaking of Jamie Dimon and David Solomon of Goldman, they both said everybody needs to be back. I do think there will be certain companies and certain industries that say, look, we've decided that work means being at a physical place between these hours. And also, I spoke at a communications company yesterday in Dallas. I think it is really difficult to scale culture remotely. I think it's just— Yeah, I would agree. I've seen this firsthand at my startup. It's one thing to take people who've worked together and have them be remote for a while. And I do think there's a huge unlock for people who are tasked, and it's usually women, with a disproportionate amount of the care for others in the household, whether it's

aging parents or kids. There's an enormous unlock around not having to commute five days a week. And so to not incorporate that is a benefit for people who have what I would call real needs and can add to society and make homes healthier by, I think you should offer that. And I do think- All right. All right. But let me just say, he's talking about top executives. And I think they can afford it.

They can afford it. They can get childcare. Yeah. Easier. And one of the things that was interesting, I thought the one thing that was interesting, it was kind of, I believe, a dig at Apple. I couldn't tell. Was that, like, people say you can't make great products without being together. And some people say you can.

But what's the last great thing they made? It was something like that. It was some version of that. And I think he's right. I think proximity does breed creativity within people. A hundred percent. And I don't, I like, think proximity does breed creativity within people. A hundred percent. And I don't, I like, listen, I've been remote working almost my whole career, but it's, I kind of, everyone, like the same thing with social media companies putting up what they want,

every employee should decide for themselves. They should decide. And then they will get the employees they want and the ones that don't like it can leave. That's my feeling on that. But I kind of agreed with him on this, especially that company. That particular company needs the executives to be just where the workers are, et cetera. Well, someone said, I forget what the executive said, and of course it got huge blowback, but somebody said that the most ambitious young employees want to be in the office, and they got huge blowback from people who said, well, I'm ambitious. I just don't have the option to be in the office. So at my firm, Prop G Media, you know who wanted to be in the office?

It was the young people. They won, especially in cities. They're living in such small apartments. They're at an age where they want to make mentors, friends. And they got a WeWork-like thing in Brooklyn and said, we're going in. And they go in every day, which just shocked me. No, I think that's a good thing. I think it's a good thing, too.

It doesn't shock me. And there is – you want to talk about unpopular? I had, at all of my companies, a mandatory 8 a.m. Monday morning meeting. Yeah, you told me this. And then what we also had – you want to talk about – and this was less than popular. We actually liked it. The senior executives, we used to do a call every Sunday night to talk about the week ahead. It was like we'd get on the phone.

Those are not necessary. Unnecessary. When you're growing a company, I don't know. I guess. I don't know. Might not be the right way, but it's my way. Hustle porn. That's hustle porn.

Well, you like porn. I like both those things. I like both those things. Yeah, you like hustle and porn. That's hustle porn. Well, you like porn. I like both those things. I like both those things. Yeah, you like hustle and porn. All right, let's get to our big story. Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Meta, something we predicted would happen. After 14 years as chief operating officer, she announced her departure on Facebook post on Wednesday, where she talked up the company's contributions to women's equality and safety.

Mark Zuckerberg said he has no plans to replace Sandberg's role in the existing structure. He sort of spread it around. He tapped chief growth officer, Javier Olivan, who has a very good reputation, by the way, to take the title of COO, but he has many fewer things than Sheryl had. Nick Clegg has a bunch.

Other people have a bunch. Marnie Levine, who was one of her people Cheryl's brought up. Sandberg said she would focus on her foundation and philanthropy and would continue to serve on Facebook's board of directors. People don't know this. She's also, I believe it was noted

that she's getting married this August, remarried after her husband died several years ago. What do you think? Why is she leaving now? And Stephanie Ruhle tweeted, why now? Like that really big with the caps. So what thinks you about this?

There's a lot of regulatory or pursuing legal action against Facebook. More is on the way. There's going to be Super Pumped is coming up from Brian Koppelman with Mark and Cheryl for Super Pumped season two, but that's not, he's not there. But nonetheless, this relationship is coming to an end, unlike ours, this very long-term 14 years. Half of it very good, half of it not so good,

as Casey Newton pointed out. What thinks you? What thinks you, Scott? Go ahead. Well, look, first off, I just think you have to acknowledge that Gates and Ballmer, Jobs and Ive, and Zuckerberg and Sandberg are right up there in terms of creating shareholder value and building an unbelievable business, which isn't easy. I mean, they basically created or dominated or are the iconic technology firm in a space that has become increasingly important that no one even imagined. And she was the adult in the room. She was 38 when she joined a 23-year-old. That's correct. And big companies and organizations

all over the world said, and Casey pointed this out, that sort of like the first seven years and the second seven years, but the first seven years and the second seven years. But the first seven years, she established herself as one of the most competent, socially minded people in business. And to not acknowledge that is to say, is to not have any nuance. She built that business. She built the key part. That business was chaos before that. Believe me, I covered it. And guess who scooped that story that she went there from Google?

Kara Swisher. Nonetheless, she changed that company's profile. It was really a chaos factory before that. It really was. He couldn't have done it without her. And some people think that's a bad thing, of course, because he couldn't have done it without her. The interesting thing is that if she had left in 2015 or 2016, I think she would be either she'd be governor or she'd be probably one of the premier candidates or names being tossed around to potentially get the Democratic nomination in 2024. Yeah, I would agree.

I think she was on such an incredible trajectory. And here's what the last seven years are. Yeah, I would agree. anti-Semitic on Soros, whether it was spreading lies about assaulting teachers on TikTok, whether it was going on the media and saying other platforms didn't have the security measures we did January 6th and having all media go, okay, now you're just lying to us. Whether it was a 900 person PR and comms department where there seemed to be a couple hundred people doing nothing, but managing her obsession with the perception of the Russian hack instead of, she seemed to be spending more time managing her perception and delaying obfuscating the public's perception of really bad things at Facebook rather than actually addressing the problems.

And here is the conflict. And this is the difference between whether she will be a viable candidate for office, which I think she absolutely plans to do, and whether she's kind of a footnote in history. And that is, she has positioned herself as someone who's an enormous and powerful advocate for women in the workplace. And she's written eloquently about it. She's a powerful figure. She sets a great example for women in the workplace. At the same time, just as George Carlin said, if you're pre-birth, the Republicans got your back. If you're preschool, you're fucked. If you are a woman at work, you could argue that Sheryl Sandberg has your back. If you're a 15-year-old woman who suffers from an eating disorder

and Facebook serves you up an algorithm for an extreme dieting website, you're on your own. And this is the conflict and the tension around Sheryl Sandberg's legacy, is that to position herself as an advocate for women and to have played a key role in what is, at the end of the day, a massive uptick in depression, especially among teens, especially among girls, is the conflict, the irony, the tension that is Sheryl Sandberg. So I think it's going to be very interesting what her legacy is. You're being rather kind. You had called her a number of other names before, which is interesting.

You're being very, I like this. I like this analysis. I would agree with you. I think she is a complex figure. And, you know, people always think I'm too nice to her. The reason I'm too nice to her is I do. The reason I'm too nice to her is because I think it should focus on Mark Zuckerberg. And often, whatever the case is, whether it's Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, whether it's Amber Heard and Johnny Depp,

they both sound vile. You know what I mean? It's addict versus addict, playing out real time. And, but she gets the, Amber Heard gets a bulk of the problem here. If you look at the British case, you're sort of like, Johnny Depp's a scary character. So, I think a bulk of the problem here. If you look at the British case, you're sort of like, Johnny Depp's a scary character. So I think that one of the problems she had was the thing that got the company into a great space is exactly the problem she had later when it got to be more serious. And she may not recall this conversation. I actually do have to call her and ask her because it's going to be in my book where I called her around 2060. I had thought she should leave the company when Dave died in May of 2015. I liked Dave very much. I would consider him a friend. People loved him. I've never heard anyone say anything bad about him.

He was a wonderful guy. He was a very good judge with her. He was a very good person who would probably give her great advice. I think he would stop her from doing some of these things. He was just a very good person and someone, I think, who would have been a good influence on her had he continued to live. It was a tragedy that he died. I think she should have left then. And you're right, her legacy would have been very different. She could have been, she has a hard time being, not being smooth. I don't know what else to say.

She's such a, like a smooth operator of an executive, you know, very perfect, very with the hands, everything about it. And I think she just felt like, I think Mark was very kind to her and personally too when Dave died. And I think they developed a bond. And so she was loyal to a fault and also was part of it too. So wasn't listening.

And we had a conversation about the Russian stuff in 2015 maybe. And she said I was overstating it. I said she was underthinking it. And I said, we'll see what happens. But you've got to come clean. And I think when she did the thing on January 6th, about January 6th, that was really sort of the top of the don't do this. What are you doing?

Why are you doing this kind of thing? But go ahead. You pointed this out to me, and you're absolutely right. At the end of the day, the real blame or the real credit lies with the top guy. And it's a guy, and it's Mark Zuckerberg. And I think Mark Zuckerberg is brilliant. And quite frankly, I think he weaponized Sheryl Sandberg. He immediately recognized that she is incredibly compelling. She's incredibly charismatic. She is an icon for 51% of the population. Let's weaponize her and turn her into the ultimate heat shield against any sunshine that shows what is actually the fuck going on here because it is pretty ugly.

And he deployed her brilliantly. And here's the thing. There have been executives who have lied more than Sheryl Sandberg. There's never been an executive who has lied longer. No one has ever survived the number of blatant falsehoods for as long as Sheryl Sandberg. And he deployed it brilliantly. And everyone after her, whether it's Nick Clegg or the guy who was running PR before her, Kevin Ross, no one has had the half-life of bullshit before the media goes, you know what, you're just being paid to lie. And we don't believe anything you say. Sheryl Sandberg was the premier weapon of mass distraction ever deployed on the business community. And Mark Zuckerberg was brilliant.

And unfortunately, if she had left six years ago, I think she genuinely would be a viable presidential candidate. I agree. I agree. I think she would be, I think she would have moved away. I think she might have done some really interesting things around her foundation. I think she, you know, it's interesting. I think about what she's going to do next, because philanthropy is what she's talking about. I think about what she's going to do next because philanthropy is what she's talking about. I don't think she's going to start a company. I don't think she's going to run a company. She's 100%.

She's not running. I'm telling you, she's not running. She can't run without Dave. I always thought when Dave died, that was the end of it. I don't know if she's going to win. I know what she's doing. I think she's not going to run. I don't think she's going to.

I think she's going to try to pull a Bill Gates before, you know, the philandering thing. I think Bill managed she's going to. I think she's going to try to pull a Bill Gates before, you know, the philandering thing. I think Bill managed to revive his reputation. You know, he had a Darth Vader reputation. And through the philanthropy and through all these good acts and measured and statesman-like stuff, he returned his reputation. There's a huge difference between Bill Gates and Sheryl Sandberg. Come on. Go ahead. All on. Go ahead. All right. I think Bill Gates manages his reputation as a function of wanting to solve

really big problems. And I think he'd rather stay out of the limelight. OK. I think Sheryl Sandberg will use her philanthropy solely as a means to set up everything to run for Dianne Feinstein's seat in 2024. She is going to run for the Democratic nomination for Dianne Feinstein's seat as soon as people at some point, somebody is going to have to have a talk with Senator Feinstein and say, you've had a— People have had talks with Senator Feinstein. She doesn't seem to be listening. 2024, Sheryl Sandberg is going to—I don't know. She will absolutely do polls, run trial balloons.

And I believe because, quite frankly, she's had more and more difficulty reading the room as she's gotten older. She is positioning herself to run for Senate. She's totally different than Bill Gates. I don't doubt her intentions. I think she, you know, let's assume that she wants, she really does care about women's issues in the workplace and gender balance. I think everything she does is posing for the cameras for an election. And she's going to run in 2024. Here's what she should do.

Not any of that. She should be doing real philanthropy. I'm not talking about what should. Should. She should be. If I was, I am speaking to her a little bit, but let me just say, if I were her, and this is what I would tell her,

she should try to really do the actual work and not for what you're saying. You know what I mean? Like really make significant strides in the areas she's talked about, which is women equality, she's very outspoken on Roe, et cetera. When she was, she gave at one point, a couple of years ago, I had to do an interview of her, and she gave $1 million to Planned Parenthood. I thought she should have donated and told her there's $100 million.

Well, in a similar story, I gave $17 to the local animal shelter. And she's like, fuck you. And I was like, well, $10 million is nothing to you. That's like me giving $20. Like, give me a break. Or, you know, like, if you really mean it, put it up there. I think her step would be to go out into the wilderness for quite a long time and come back with some results. I think it's a mistake for her to run.

And I hope she does not. If we're going to talk about should, she should stick around, use all her skills to become CEO of Meta and then shut the fucking place down. They won't ever, they're never going to happen. That's what she should do. She should become CEO and shut the company down.

As powerful as she was, she does not have power there, Mark Zuckerberg. No, I agree. I'm joking. Become CEO and then shut the company down. This is not an individual who can stay out of the limelight. And by the way, most men suffer from that same thing. There is no way she is going to fade quietly into the dark.

No way. Go and do some real lifting, heavy lifting. That's what I would do. Go quietly do some heavy, like, real lifting, heavy lifting. That's what I would—go quietly do some heavy lifting and then come back. And then maybe you'll have returned. But you know her. I'm putting forward a thesis. I don't know her. Everything I have seen from her is that, like a lot of men who are powerful, she is very focused on advancing her own power and public profile, which includes

political office. I think she looks in the mirror every day and says, hello, Madam Senator, Madam President. I don't think she says, hello, person who's going to change, who's going to develop a cheaper toilet for Africa, which is what Bill Gates is trying to do. I don't think that's her mission. I think her mission is to be an elected leader and increase her power. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that. That's what most men... I think she'd spend her money to do a local election media stuff. And really, if I were her, I'd start buying up local media sites or something like that. You know, they're looking for a chief of staff or a foundation. Do you want to apply? Shall I apply? Should we apply?

She has a foundation? Oh, that's right. That makes sense. Yeah, she has a big one. They all have them. But I would really I hope she does not do that. And I hope I get a chance to tell her that. Probably she might listen to this. I think she needs to go and do the real work. And by the way,

let me just say from the reaction of just one tweet I made, people do not forgive her and never will. They think she destroyed democracy. But when I did win over the- I'm just saying, it may be irrevocable, but I don't know. Who knows? When I went on Twitter and just started putting out a bunch of snarky tweets, I got a lot of pushback and it depressed me. So you know what I did? I did my favorite thing. I go to that strip club where they spit in your face. That always cheers me up. That always cheers me up. You got more, hey, don't be so mean to Cheryl.

I got, hey, she's the handmaiden to sedition. I got a lot of that. And I can see all sides of this. Honestly, she's such a complex character. But she definitely was responsible for Facebook. I don't think she had as much power as he did. I think that's a much, it's a much different place than you think inside there.

I think Mark rules the room. Well, let me ask you a question. She should have left. She should have left. That would have been powerful. Oh, 100%. Talk about staying too long. She should have left.

Because if she – again, she left in 2015. I think she would be – her name – every time you talk about presidential contenders, her name would be mentioned. Let me ask you this, and it's a sincere question. Has she been a net good or a net negative for women? I don't think she should represent all women. I think that's, you know, has Lindsey Graham been a net good or negative to men as Trump? I don't think it's a fair thing. I don't think it's a fair thing.

She's an executive, and so I'm not going to answer that question. Okay. It's absolutely a fair question, Cara, because she's tried to position herself as the premier advocate for women. Lindsey Graham isn't saying I'm representing heterosexual men. No, you shouldn't. I think there's a lot of complex characters in the feminism pantheon. I don't know. I don't think anybody represents anything. Madeline Albright, an enormous positive for women. Hillary Clinton. I will say, I think Hillary Clinton has been a net positive for women. Not always. Not always, but she will be. I think she will be. Well, okay. Net. I'm using the word net. Net.

Net positive for women. Sheryl Sandberg, question mark. I mean, no matter how you slice it, Sheryl Sandberg has created more wealth for people through her efforts at Facebook than most executives in Silicon Valley. I just, like, look at some of these baby boys that behave so badly. And then we let them go on and laugh. Ha, ha, ha. It's so funny when Elon insults trans people. Anyway, in any case, Sheryl Sandberg is never going to do something like that. So let us just read. We've been predicting this for

a while. Let us play ourselves to give ourselves some credit. What do you think? I couldn't predict anything that Mark Zuckerberg is planning to do. I think he and Cheryl are going to move along. Both of them? And you think they'll bring in someone from the outside? That would be

the shareholder-driven thing to do, to hit the reset button. Because Cheryl's not going to take over for him. That's not going to happen now because they need to clear the whole thing out. And I think it's a perfect – the Bezos move gives them a little more permission to do this. Just so you know, the Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg Family Foundation oversees two nonprofits that build on the work of Sandberg's books, LeanIn.org and OptionBee.org. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. But I really appreciate your analysis here. I thought you were just going to yell, but you didn't. You had some very good analysis here. Yeah, but I mean this sincerely. You opened my eyes to the fact that, Scott, at the end of the

day, it's about number one. And I actually, everyone, you just said he was very kind to her. I think he absolutely weaponized her. I mean, cry a river, she made a billion dollars. I'm talking about the reason she was so loyal to him. I think that there was a lot of closeness after Dave died in terms of both him and Priscilla. I think there was a lot. Okay, again, armchair therapist, I think is a fucking sociopath bridging psychopath and uses stuff like that to say, and go out there and tell them we're proud of the progress we've made around January 6th and see if they go for it. See if they go for it. Yeah, I can't believe she did that.

That was, I texted her. I was like, what are you doing? What the hell? So I don't, but you're right. You've always said you've been consistent. At the end of the day, it's about the CEO and he controls the company. And he's still there. And he's still there. He's still running it and he's betting it all on Meta. Oh, how much do we love that?

That makes me so happy. By himself. Anyway, we're going to have a quick break. We'll do it very quickly. We'll talk about FTC's pursuit of Amazon and take a listener question about innovation. 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.

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Government lawyers are reportedly looking into Amazon Web Services as well as the company's acquisition of MGM. Earlier this year, as Lina Khan said they might when they let it go through, the FTC let the deal go through, but they said they could revisit it. Now be the time. Lina Khan is said to have taken a personal interest in the probe. I will say she asked me about it, about MGM, and I was like, it's not competitive. I don't even think it was competitive.

There's so much entertainment competition. That's what I answered to her. I said other things are much more important when it has to do with Amazon and antitrust. So what do you think? Amazon Web Services has $13 billion in operating income in 2020. MGM sold to Amazon for $8.5 billion. If you look at the cloud hosting in the top 100,000 websites, Amazon has 34% market share. That's bigger, but I still think there's a lot of competition. AWS outages affected everyone from Netflix to Disney Plus to Coinbase to Pinterest.

You think AWS could become its own company. I'm not sure either of these things. I think the marketplace issues are the most important thing around Amazon. I don't know. What do you think, Scott? I think, and I understand why. The FTC is under-resourced, and they're outgunned. So they're like, what can we get our arms around? But they're being heavy-handed with the wrong issue here. Amazon's purchase of MGM, I mean, it's pretty trivial. Now, granted, you could argue it's an example of the fact that they have so much market capitalization, they can do uneconomic deals.

Okay, fine, that's an example of monopoly power. But if you actually wanted to make a difference in terms of competition in the marketplace, you would say, all right, you can't be both the platform competing against your competitors. You can't be both the platform competing against your competitors and also if you want, you can't use AWS to subsidize and create a value proposition for consumers no one else can compete with on the retail side, funneling profits from one end to the other. This is sort of, you're focused on the wrong thing. You have a patient with cancer and you're like, we're going to get that, we're going to take the wart off your foot. It's just. Yeah. It's not even a wart. They're like, okay, we got to do something we can be successful at. We can get our arms around. This is not the problem. They're not going to be successful at it. Even Hollywood people,

they just think they overpaid for it, but they don't feel that bad about it. Amazon Prime Video isn't the problem. Them having access to Rocky isn't the problem. So I look at this and I say, okay, I understand that you're trying to have a win here against a big name. That makes sense strategically. But you're being heavy-handed with the wrong issue here. It just doesn't. Yeah, and I'm not even sure with AWS. You know, maybe they have some documents we don't know about or something like that.

But it seems like there's Google. There's lots of people in this space. I think there's choice, right? I think it feels like maybe. I'd like to see some of the proof. That's lots of people in this space. I think there's choice, right? I think it feels like maybe. I'd like to see some of the proof. That's what I'd like to see. With MGM, I'm sorry. I think it's a rabbit hole.

She shouldn't go down. I think the marketplace issue is really the issue, and it may not be an antitrust issue. She's risking a loss on an issue that even if she wins, the downside's greater than the upside here. What's the upside? That she gets a victory and Amazon has to re-spin or the acquisition doesn't close of MGM UA? I don't... Yeah, it did close, yeah.

What, what... Un-spin. What? Anyways, I think it's another example. We are perplexed. We are perplexed. Lena, we'd like some answers. Please explain.

There may be stuff we don't know, but in any case, there's bigger fish with Amazon, I suspect, and I suspect none of them are going to get got. In any case, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question, which is sort of along these lines. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail. The question comes via email from Jeremy from Brooklyn. I'll read it. You often talk about how Facebook is not an innovative company, which I agree with. My question to you both is, why aren't they? They clearly throw boatloads of money around for smart people. I work in tech and personally know a few folks who either work there now or in the past who are all bright, creative, and driven people. So I can't imagine lack of talent is the problem. Why does

Facebook tend to fail at creating innovative products despite access to the same capital and talent, whereas a company like Apple or Amazon often succeed? I don't know what to tell you, Jeremy. Some things, people aren't innovative. They just aren't. They're just not. There's some cultures that aren't innovative, that aren't fast moving. And they just, I can't, there's all kinds of reasons.

Either they're fearful or people are safe with all their money or, God, there's all kinds of reasons companies, they don't have to be. I don't know, Scott, you run companies more than I do. I just, people are either creative or they're not. And I don't know, you can foment creativity, like we talked about the flow state, but I don't know, you have to, it's hard. Go ahead, Scott. Well, first off, you can't immediately, the term innovation has become almost meaningless

because it's used so often. And if you look at economic history, it's not the innovators that create the most shareholder value. Facebook was not the first social media platform. Remember Friendster? Apple was not the first company in object-oriented computing, nor were they the first company to have an MP3 player. I mean, it's not the innovator that creates shareholder value. They get mud on their face and arrows in their back. It's the company that takes someone else's innovation and runs with it and does a better job of it. Now, what's unusual about Facebook, to his point or to Jeremy's point, is that they have been less able to diversify their revenues than anyone else.

So, Google gets real revenues from YouTube. Amazon gets enormous revenues from AWS. Facebook's percentage of revenues that they get from advertising has gone in the wrong direction. It's gone from like 90% to 97%. And if I were to try and devise a strategy to undermine, kneecap, weaken the corpus that is Facebook, I would invent this distraction called the metaverse and specifically the Oculus to pour billions of dollars down a sinkhole. Not only are they not innovative, but they are so, in my opinion, they've created a culture, and I think this goes back to Sheryl Sandberg, where I think Mark Zuckerberg, I don't know this, but I think for them to be going this hard, this long at the metaverse, it just shows that you can't tell.

I think this thing already. No one told him to stop. I can see this room already. Let me just say, I have been in discussions with Mark and many other people. I could spend hours with Evan Spiegel talking. I can spend hours with Kevin Systrom, Brian Chesky. I'm just trying to name some of the creative people I think. Tim Cook is fascinating to talk to. I cannot spend hours talking to Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, he gets all, there's a word salad that goes on about community.

And then I don't put the phone down, but I certainly am like, I would like a fresh idea here. You know what I mean? Like, kind of when I met you, you were head full of fresh ideas. It was, I really wanted to talk to you. Go on. I did. You thought I was going to say you were boring, but you are not. I can't explain why some people, some people keep asking me lately how we met, but I got to say, I just really wanted to talk to you.

And that's how I feel about a lot of creative people when you meet them. And then you meet other people, you're like, oh God, kill me now. Like, get me out of this dinner party kind of thing. And I think that's, you can't, it's not innovation, it's creativity. And you're right. Some people take advantage of creativity. Facebook definitely did that around buying Instagram and other things. They're good at buying, just the way Bill Gates was very good, opportunistic, but it wasn't creative. Steve Jobs was creative. And so, I don't know why. It just is. It's just, there's usually one person or two people at the top. In the case of Snapchat, it's Evan Spiegel. In the case of Apple of Apple is obviously Steve Jobs and Johnny Ive. And to an extent, Tim Cook. He is really innovative around supply chain.

He really just is. Well, I mean, there's a lot of things. There's been so much research around innovation and creativity. And it's not only about coming up with new ideas. It's having the willingness or giving people permission to fail. And it's also killing ideas when they're not working. To say, okay, this isn't working. We're going on to the next thing. And it's also what gets very hard about creativity with a

company as successful as Meta is what's always hanging over the cloud that comes over every decision is, will this innovation threaten our legacy business? And that is- Yeah, they do think like that a lot, yeah. Whereas if you look at Apple, they said, I know, let's take this wildly profitable, huge juggernaut product called the iPod and let's turn it into a button on the iPhone. I mean, that's a key component of creativity. You don't let – if somebody says we can make this better and we're uniquely positioned to make this better, the majority of big companies go, yeah, but it's going to threaten this amazing thing called our legacy business. So we'd rather, I mean, AT&T never wanted, when it was a big company, they never wanted to do fiber or sell because they're like, dude, do you know how much money we're making off our long distance lines?

Yep. That's true. If someone's going to eat our lunch, it might as well be us. That's right. So smaller companies that have less to lose are generally much more creative because they take more crazy swings at the bat. They don't have to be small. They don't have to be small. You know, I just, if you spend any length of time with Facebook people, processes, any company that is non-creative, process takes over of anything else. Process. It's like process meetings.

I remember the journal, Wall Street Journal. I know, but I was at the Wall Street Journal and I'm thinking, I'm in way too many fucking meetings. Like, it was just, I can't explain it. It's just, it's a, I stopped listening to the people I'm talking to often at Facebook for years. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm so bored. And I don't know why. I don't know why I was. And every time I saw Elon, I was like, that's cool.

You're crazy. You know, that kind of stuff. And so, you know, whether you like him or not, it was always interesting. So, I don't know. Good question, Jeremy from Brooklyn. But I have to say, that is how I felt when I met Scott. What a creative mind he has. That's really the nicest thing that's happened to me all day.

You are. It was true. I also said, what an asshole. As you know. I aspire to be creative. What a jerk. But, wow, I didn't think of that. I don't mind that. Anyway. I don't mind that at true. I was like, I also said, what an asshole. As you know. I aspire to be creative. What a jerk. But wow, I didn't think of that. I don't mind that.

Anyway. I don't mind that at all. I know. I know you do. I don't mind that at all. Which is why we get along. All right. If you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Our last episode, which included questions on dating, was so popular. We're going to do a whole episode on dating. This is very exciting for me because I have my 30-year high school reunion coming up, and I want to stand up in front of everybody and say, I give people advice now on dating. That's important to me. By the way, it's my 40th, but let's just pretend it's my 30th. So this is for me. This is all about me. Send us your questions about dating. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month at Fizz,

you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, I'm going to go first. Go ahead. Top Gun now has a record for the biggest Memorial Day opening weekend. Great movie. It made an estimated $156 million this opening weekend.

It marks the biggest opening of Tom Cruise's career, which Matt Bellany predicted in our last quarterly predictions episode. I predict that Top Gun Maverick, which comes out on May 27th, will be the biggest opening weekend of Tom Cruise's career. Let me just say, I'm thrilled by that. I'm wearing a Fighter School t-shirt. But that said, let me just say one thing that Casey Newton pointed out, but his mom, Sally, doesn't want to hear us talk about Top Gun.

I'm not going to say why, but she has issues around the Scientology. And so... Oh, God, really? We can't enjoy movies now because of people's off-camera behavior? I know, but I'm just going to point it out. Not everybody, I got a couple of people saying that, and I get it. I just think it's, I think it's been around for a long time. Tell us, Mom, when someone is that good looking, you forgive a lot of their shit. You just, you got to forgive a lot of their misgivings. Repulsive antics around Scientology. Okay. And there you have it, Sally, our discussion about that.

So can I make two observations about Maverick Top Gun 2? I went and saw it. Yes, go ahead. But you need to win. My kids have now seen it twice. Oh, whoa. Really? A few things really struck out.

First off, there's just no getting around it. This guy has a deal with the Dark Prince. He has done a deal with Satan because he is about to turn 60. And notice how when they brought back Val Kilmer, they had to build into the storyline that he's about to die. That's why he looks the way he does. And then they didn't even... Because he was good looking, Val Kilmer. Oh, my God. By the way, not only good looking... So much better looking than Tom Cruise at the time. Not only good looking.

Chisel. An extraordinary talent. Did you see Real Genius or Top Secret? I did. I loved him. He can sing and dance. And he has great comedic timing. Val Kilmer at Willow, he was a rare talent.

But to have him next to Tom Cruise, we had to give him near-death cancer. And by the way, he's actually— And then the neck thing? The neck thing old ladies wear? Because he has neck issues. But also, in fairness to Val Kilmer, he is actually quite ill. But notice how they didn't even dare bring back Kelly McGillis or Meg Ryan. No.

Because guess what? They actually looked their age. And they're like, we can't have that. We have to bring in another freak of nature, Jennifer Connelly, who's 51 going on 18. Yeah, she looks good. I mean, she looks amazing. And she was age appropriate, which I— That was nice.

To get a sense of how freakishly remarkable Tom Cruise is, they couldn't bring anybody back unless they had cancer. Can I just clear up something about Jennifer Connelly's character? Someone was like, oh, she's representing single mothers. She was the daughter of an admiral who probably by then worked for a defense company, so she probably was rich. They're like, how could she have a bar, a Porsche, the house, et cetera? She was rich to start with. Okay, sorry. That was weird. And the other thing that I found really interesting is everything's become so politicized. Did you notice how they made the enemy totally neutral? No flags. Neutral. He didn't know if it was Iran,

China, or Russia. Iran, right? Well, okay, geography. It's not Iran. Here's the thing. If you think about it, okay,

the landscape sounded like Iran and nuclear materials and fusion reactor, all that stuff, except, except, Iran wouldn't have access to third generation fighters.

Fifth generation. Fifth generation, whatever they call it. Anyways, a great film. I don't even know if that's a thing, by the way, but fifth-generation. All right, go ahead. What is your win? I fail, I have Marjorie Taylor Greene once again.

Look, my win is the same as my fail, and that is the thing I got disappointed, I thought it was really interesting how the top story was the Depp-Herd verdict over Sheryl Sandberg leaving. I thought that was interesting. I agree. And also, just because I'm naturally morose, but I think there is a – I think it's important here that we not get distracted and that as we usually do, we move away from what was a horrific shooting last week. So I just want to – quite frankly, I want to bring it up again. And my win is, I do think, well, obviously, we've been talking about the tragedy here. There is real, I was so inspired and moved and quite frankly, just sort of rattled by, I don't know if you read about, there's a gentleman named Trey Ganim, who is an artisan who met with all of the families

and is making custom caskets. And these caskets, I mean, are not only so beautiful, but so heartbreaking. There's one of Superman. There's another that has TikTok and softball. But he basically sat down with all the families and said, I want to bury your kids how they'd want to be buried.

But anyways, my point is, I really hope we don't do what we always do, and that is move on to bullshit like Heard and Depp and Sheryl Sandberg. There is a very important story that commands and deserves our continued attention. But my win— Same thing with Ukraine and Uvalde. And by the way, there was another shooting in Tulsa. They've got to come up with gun reform. Same thing with Roe. We are not—like, youe. I couldn't watch a bit of that Heard thing. I thought it was sad and depressing and gruesome. Monica Hess wrote a great column about it.

About Heard and Depp? sad marriage, the end of this very sad and depressing marriage. And they're much more important. These children were murdered. We have to move towards gun reform. There's some movement in the Senate. We'll see. We've been there before. But it would be a huge fail if we don't do gun reform at this point. And remember, as they say, as it's getting a lot of traction, well-regulated militia. Those words are in there. They're in there for a reason. And all of you who think you can do whatever you want, it says it in the, if you believe in the Constitution, then read it. Well, Maureen Dowd had a really powerful, and I texted her, article, and she just started off by saying, America is not some mystical kingdom run by

magical princes or fairies. She said, this is our country. We have a democratically elected Congress and Senate that get to pass or not pass gun control laws. And she just, it was just a wake-up call. Like, don't get resigned. This isn't some fairytale thing we don't have control over. We absolutely have control over this. 100%.

But anyways, my win is— It becomes hopeless. It does feel hopeless, though, to be fair. My win is just the artisanship and grace and generosity of this gentleman, Trey Ganim. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it is for him to do this. But you literally see these caskets, and I would recommend everyone Google Trey Ganim. And I mean it really brings home in a very bittersweet way what has happened here. But my win is I just think this individual must just – I just thought, God, what an incredibly interesting, talented, and generous

man this guy must be. Anyways, you see this – It was a beautiful thought, an artistic thought. There's no happiness to become of this. It combines the depravity and at the same time, the grace of our society. And it was my win as Trey Ganim. Yeah, my fail, by the way, is the stuff that's starting to come out about January 6th.

These emails, this is a coup attempt. It's crazy how- Say more, I haven't been following that. I just follow it. It'll start to come out as they have the hearings and everything else this soon. Some of these emails from these lawyers of Trump's are, they're just literally trying to take over the government via non-democratic means. And it is, there's no way, the fact that they thought they'd get away with it and they're continuing to get away with it is, you know, trying to seed people across the country. Honestly, it's – people should be more – they won't be, but they should be horrified by the attempt to subvert democracy, speaking of that.

Oh, wait. I forgot my fail. It's that bitch, Dr. Swisher. Stay away from my man. Stay away from my man. They're walking right now in the park. Right now as we speak, they're taking a lovely sojourn in Central Park, walking the dog. They're walking the dog.

Yeah. I don't know where you are. Not walking the dog. Anyway, and that does not, there's not a euphemism for anything else, by the way. No, I don't. Anyway. Okay, Scott, that is the show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more Pivot.

We've got lots to talk about. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertott engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silberio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Do you have two kids, one who rolls their eyes and the other that doesn't? Appreciate the one that doesn't. Appreciate the one that doesn't. Because soon enough, the eye roll is coming. The eye roll is coming.