Pivot - Tech in the time of COVID-19, Congressional antitrust hearing and Google Search, PLUS a listener asks: could Amazon Care roll out COVID-19 tests?

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about COVID-19, what tech could do to help, and what we need to see from leadership. We hear from Ron Klain, who was the "Ebola czar" under the Obama administration about why we need COVID-19 tests and what the hold up is in getting them. In other news, Kara and Scott discuss this week's Congressional hearing on antitrust and why Yelp thinks Google's search results are biased towards their own products. In Listener Mail we get a question about whether Amazon should roll out COVID-19 tests as part of their Amazon Care launch (spoiler alert: this idea gets a big WOOF yes from the Big Dawg). Plus Scott gives professors switching to online class forums tips on how to be a dynamic lecturer via web. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. dancing around singing Baby Got Back. But I don't know what to say. Let me just go through it. Tom Hanks has COVID-19. The NBA canceled his season because one of his players got that. Travel from Europe halted, sort of, except from the UK where Trump has resorts.

That speech was wacky last night. We still don't have testing. Scott, give me some information here. What do you think? Well, I'm not sure I have any information. I can tell you what I think or what starts through my mind, and I'm curious if it's stuck here. I immediately go back to the last time I felt this sort of uneasiness, and that was in the midst of the AIDS crisis, living in San Francisco in the early 90s. And I remember seeing a stat that said, I used to go to the Castro a lot, and I remember

a stat saying that in the Castro, likely one out of every two men walking around has the virus. And now we're hearing these stats. Angela Merkel says she believes that 70% of Germany at some point might have the virus. We're starting to hear about the CDC has said, or there was a panel at UCSF, which is an incredible medical school, and the panel basically said we have moved from containment, that containment is sort of a myth, to care. And the thing that really struck me that I keep hearing about is this notion of flattening the curve through social distance, that we need to just ensure it's not so much, it's no longer that the spread of the virus is the risk,

it's that the spread of the virus peaks so fast that it overwhelms our healthcare system and that the mortality rates not only go up for people infected with coronavirus, but the mortality rates go up across the board because people who have other health conditions can't access our healthcare system. Because they deluge the hospital system. And there's this great data that's come out from The Guardian about if China, who I think people will probably think in some ways handled the, you know, the response was aggressive and well handled, if they had done what they had did two weeks earlier, there would have been 68% fewer cases. If they'd done it three weeks earlier, there'd been 95% fewer cases. But if they had done it not as fast by a week, there'd be 66 percent more cases.

Basically, what it all comes down to is how crisp and timely your response is. I was listening, and one more thing, and then I'll shut up. But whenever you're in media, I don't care if you're on CNBC or you're doing what we do, you're told, generally speaking, the fastest way to alienate 49% of your advertising base and your consumers is to make this political. But I genuinely believe that there's a business lesson here and that greatness is in the agency of others and incompetence is an isolation of your own narcissism. And I believe that Barack Obama was president in Germany, even if

we had screwed up, even if the CDC and testing had gotten it wrong, I think people like Angela Merkel or people in South Korea where they're testing 10,000 people a day, we've tested 11,000 total, where in Germany they figured out a way to do drive-through testing. I think these leaders would be inclined to reach out to our president and say, hey, boss, I'm going to help you. I have your back. Yeah. And I don't think anyone's looking to help us right now. No, especially because Trump made that. I'm going to interject now because I actually just did an hour, more than an hour interview with Ron Klain, who was President Obama's Ebola czar and how they handled that crisis. And he it was a long and wide ranging interview about what to do.

And we have some some tape about that, especially around what you were just talking about, which is mitigation and handling the crisis through adequate hospitalization ability, essentially, and testing. I asked him about all this and what the Trump administration needs to do in order to stem the spread of the virus in the U.S. the Trump administration needs to do in order to stem the spread of the virus in the U.S. The government made the wrong choice in getting rid of the WHO test and trying to build its own here in America. That went awry. Then when they tried to pivot to doing other kinds of testing, there were bureaucratic problems, bureaucratic infighting between the CDC and the FDA. And I think some responsibility goes to the president himself for failing to demand that the government work quickly, for trying to minimize this problem,

trying to say it's basically going to go away as a miracle. That didn't send the right signals to the government to work quickly to solve this problem. If we don't know where the disease is, we can't really fight it effectively. If we don't know who has it, we can't isolate those people, we can't get them treatment, and we can't keep them from effectively. If we don't know who has it, we can't isolate those people, we can't get them treatment, and we can't keep them from spreading it to other people.

And if we don't know where it is in terms of nursing homes and senior centers, we're going to see, you know, catastrophic spread of this disease among those who are most vulnerable to it and most vulnerable to the effects of the disease. That's the challenge we're facing right now. Okay, I think what's really important of all the things that Ron said was the three-pronged thing.

It was you need testing to figure out where it is. Kind of. Secondly, you need hospitalization to be up to par, including moving testing out of hospitals in order not to infect sick people, right? And then having the ability to come up with a cure. And that's the third part, obviously, which is going to take a much longer time. It was a really fascinating interview, largely because this is just essentially block and tackling in terms of doing it. And the politicization, the ignorance of it, the pulling on the same old things, which is, you know,

blocking borders and things like that, isn't going to cut it in this situation. Let's build a wall. Let's build a wall around Europe. The virus is not going to pay for the wall either. Yeah. And so what's really troubling is that it continues this morning after Trump made that, what I consider a disastrous speech last night, focusing on one aspect, which is blocking people from coming, which does mitigate. It absolutely does.

It just can't be done just by itself. He didn't mention testing. He didn't mention all kinds of things. So I think you're right. I think this is just, and then he went on a rant about Nancy Pelosi this morning and Chuck Schumer from weeks ago, something about the judges and stuff like that. And so it really creates a situation where he needs to stop talking and let actual people, including governors and others, take over. So I'm not sure when that's going to happen. And I always immediately distill stuff down to kind of business principles. And there's this basic principle that you can't manage what you can't measure. And the reality is we can't manage this crisis unless we can measure it. And the vehicle for measurement is testing.

And that is going to go down. I think the forensics here are going to all lead to that the real error here was, one, you know, we have this virus that's terrible, but we'll absolutely get past it. But this virus that took hold of our society in January of 2017 of incompetence and narcissism, where, you know, we got complacent, and this is all of our faults. We like to think that, oh, government doesn't matter. You can cut funding by 80% to the CDC's pandemic response unit two years ago, and it doesn't matter. You can surround yourself with incompetent people and have a revolving door in the cabinet because, and have basically one litmus test, and that is fail to your loyalty to the president because government really doesn't matter. And you

know what? It does. And now we've ignored the symptoms of this thing, and now it's taken purchase in the national corpus. It just feels, it's going to feel very obvious in retrospect, I think, how this happened or how it, you know, what got us to this point. Oh, no, it's pretty, you know, I think what Ron was saying, Ron Klain was saying, was that this stuff hasn't changed a lot in many years of how to handle these kind of things. And there are certain things you have to do in lockdown very quickly in coordination with each other, including cutting through the red tape, including doing proper testing. Some of this is now going to be done privately. Some of it's, you know, the original problem of not using the testing by the World Health Organization and doing this sort of build or buy decision that somehow got made.

We don't know why in terms of these tests. And beyond the tests, just having a plan where it feels like it's coordinated. And it looks like it's going to have to be done. And it is a problem, problematic because it's going to be done by 50 different states, by 50 different governors,

by localities and institutions, other institutions besides the White House. And I think that's pretty clear that that's going to happen. And then coordination at the same time, besides the health issue, is the impact on all the markets. And I think you and I, you know, we've had a million things canceled. Nobody's doing any business, essentially. You know, there's a bigger, the economic story is massive. And of course, now they're trying to come up with

some plans to stimulate the economy, which will just add more to our budget, which is already overblown. But they're sort of like reaching out. The U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Michael Kratios, he's a non-entity as far as I can tell. He convened a call with companies on Wednesday and said after the meeting, cutting-edge technology companies

and major online platforms play critical on this all-hands-on-deck effort. Today's meeting outlined the initial path forward and we intend to continue this important conversation. There's nothing technology companies can do except provide, like, digital technologies to work at home and, you know, maybe fix the disinformation that is being pushed forward by such as Fox News

and places like that about this stuff. And that's the only thing tech companies do. So, you know, I'm not sure what can be done to mitigate it from a business point of view. But we do a session in my class in brand strategy on crisis management. And it's so basic, the key lessons, and they're so hard to follow.

And in any crisis, there's only three things you need to remember. The first is the top guy or gal has to address the issue. And this is a little different because while the president and as a point of the vice president, and just to be clear, if the vice president, if every other sentence out of his mouth was because of the decisive leadership of the president, I actually think he's done a reasonably good job. I think he has tried to be – I don't agree with his policies. I don't like the way he's executed certain things. I don't agree with his policies. I don't like the way he's executed certain things. But I generally think Vice President Pence is—I think he's doing his able best, and I think he sounds almost competent compared to the guy who speaks in front of him. But it should be Anthony Fauci. It should be the top guy or gal who really understands this stuff addressing the nation. And I think they've sort of done that now. The second thing is you have to acknowledge the issue. And this administration has never acknowledged the issue. All they have done is said, let's do the calculus around the economy as it relates to my reelection prospects.

Now go out and minimize it. Have your chief economic advisor use words like airtight, have Kellyanne Conway say this has been contained. They have never, they still have not acknowledged the issue. Demonizing immigrants, making it about other people, intimating that it's other people bringing it here, that we're somehow doing this better. George Bush would never, you know, W would have never said that. W would have been, whatever you think of George W. Bush, he would have been on the phone with our allies saying, we screwed up here. What can you do for us? How can you help us? He wouldn't be demonizing these people. And then the third thing is, and this is the most important thing, is you have to overcorrect. Tylenol could have said, Johnson & Johnson could have easily said, this was an

isolated incident in Chicago. You know, someone put cyanide in bottles. Instead, they cleared the shelves of every bottle of Tylenol in several days at huge economic loss. I don't even think we should be thinking about fiscal stimulus. I think every person in the government, I think every CEO of tech should say, okay, this is a national emergency. And every minute that we get out ahead of this saves the panic and the ultimate economic crisis. The best thing we can do for the economy right now is not figuring out fiscal stimulus. It's figuring out how we get out ahead of this thing by seconds, by minutes. And it's all about testing, as far as I can tell. It seems like that is really the gating issue here that presents the biggest risk, because we just don't know.

We don't know. And the one thing that did come out that White House plans to release a database of research related to coronavirus and as tech companies help medical researchers analyze it for insights with artificial intelligence, but that's to meet table states. You know, and I think the spread of misinformation is really the biggest thing they can do with these platforms because there's so much of it out there right now, including on cable networks. And so I think that's pretty much all tech can do at this moment. I'm going to shift. We're going to talk a little bit more about tech.

Wait one second. Just the other thing that was reminiscent of the AIDS crisis for me, and I don't know if this was spawned or took you back, was there were faces of the AIDS crisis that made it real. And the first two faces, you know, it's famous people that put an image and personify it. The first for me was I remember interviewing back in New York. I think I was interviewing with Goldman, my senior at UCLA. And I picked up a post and it said, you know, Rock Hudson has AIDS. And then the second person was famous person was Freddie Mercury from Queen.

But because as, you know, being in the 80s, I still, we were still, the society was still wildly homophobic. So we found comfort in a lack of urgency and thinking, oh, it's a gay disease. And the implicit notion was somehow that they weren't victims, that they were complicit because of their abnormal behavior. And then the first person that really put a face on it for kind of my cohort, if you will, and then, you know, dumb young fraternity guys, if you will, was Magic Johnson. And I wonder if we got the face of this crisis last night with Tom and Rita Hanks. Yeah, could be. And that is, they're such likable, iconic figures. Right.

And I thought the way they handled it demonstrated a lot of grace and dignity. They were very upfront about it. As always. As always. Yeah, they're just such class acts. It's like, okay, put them in charge. Right. But I wonder if we got a face.

You know, again, they're in Australia where you can get a test for free. That's right. And widely available. Yes, I agree with you. I think. You know, again, they're in Australia where you can get a test for free. That's right. And widely available. Yes, I agree with you. I think it takes a while for things to sink in, but it's things like this that can't be, that really do. And canceling the NBA, canceling possibly the NCAA, canceling this, canceling that. I think that's when people start to, you know, in schools especially. Although Ron Klain was saying that canceling schools is not always the best thing because it then throws students out into the population and they lose their homes and links to healthcare. Same thing with young kids. They just go elsewhere and do it. So it was a really

fascinating discussion. I hope you'll listen to it and you'll enjoy it, although it's not an enjoyable topic. But I'm going to move on to other tech things. There's so much going on in the tech space, one, especially Congress holding hearings about antitrust. On Tuesday, the Senate held a subcommittee hearing on antitrust with Google Search at front and center. Essentially, that they're using it to make their stuff work better, making it difficult for competitors like Yelp to gain traction. to gain traction. At the hearing, Yelp's policy head, Luther Lowe, who I've talked to many times,

testified that Google physically demoted non-Google results, even if they contain information with higher quality scores. Others, such as Sonos, PopRockets, all kinds of startups have been talking about this. Meanwhile, Amy Klobuchar announced a bill to limit exclusionary conduct, where a big company locks out smaller competitors, among other changes to antitrust law. The bill increases a burden of proof on monopolists to prove they're not suppressing competition

and discourages courts from granting immunity from antitrust enforcement. And then Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, and Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, who will sit on the antitrust committee's urged Attorney General William Barr to examine Google's dominance in search and an ongoing investigation. Obviously, Barr has taken a much stronger hand in it over Makan Delrahim, who has been working on it. And he has a lot of people working in his office on this. So what do you think? I mean, we're in the midst of the coronavirus thing, but eventually people are going to not forget that we have these issues around antitrust. You know, Carol, I've been so excited. I feel like there's been so many head fakes

around Washington saying, okay, we're getting serious this time, whether it's the FTC or the DOJ announcing special committees or hiring Lena Cox. There's just been so much stuff, and I just feel like a jilted lover every time. Really? You feel like a jilted lover? Well, you know, disappointed. That pretty much describes my love life. Anyways, look, Senator Klobuchar, she has tremendous substance. I think she sort of represents Minnesota well, and that is we speak softly and carry a big legislative agenda. She is a fantastic legislator. Right. She does know how to do bills. She's a bill lady. She does bills. bills. She's a bill lady. She does bills. And speaking to it on a tactical level, when you own the rails, it's impossible not to abuse that power. So, for example, Apple TV+, which basically produced Murphy Brown on the budget of Game of Thrones,

and it's called The Morning Show, and has a bunch of other programs, I think has already 34 million people signed up. Why? Because if you buy an iPhone, if you're one of the 100 or 150 million people a year or 200 million people a year that get a new iPad or an iPhone, you all of a sudden have a logo or an app on your home screen that says Apple TV Plus. And in three clicks, in three clicks, Kara, you can be watching the morning show. Do you know how many clicks it takes to get to Netflix? It takes 17. And then it takes, I think, nine with Hulu. They're a little bit more user-friendly. But the reality is when, for most of us, a lack of friction to getting to watch the morning show, which is a B-plus show, in three clicks is better than spending nine to 17 to watch an A-minus show. If you can say, if every time you come home and turn on your Amazon, your Alexa show, and it says, hey, do you want to try Amazon Music for a free trial?

I mean, that's frictionless versus trying to figure out Spotify, which Amazon and Apple get in the way of. Apple charges every streaming video platform a 30% tax if you want to download it. So somewhere between 3% and 7% of Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, somewhere between 3% and 7% of the revenue goes to the person who owns the rails, Apple. Yes, indeed. Yes. And it iterates everywhere. It iterates around Google where they advantage their products over things like Yelp and others. 100%.

It happens on Amazon with stuff they're selling, batteries or whatever. It's literally all over the place. And remember in the old days of Google, when you typed in a search return, they would shade in blue the two promoted ads that were from Google saying we're getting paid. That shading has disappeared. And basically on any search of any sort of commercial value, the entire first page is being paid for. It's just Google doesn't want you to know about it. So all this aside, what are they going to do?

This bill by Klobuchar I thought was really interesting. I'm hoping to interview her about it. But, you know, they've talked about this. You know, there are lawyers at the Justice Department working on it. But, again, you know, jilted lover Scott Galloway, what's going to happen? I mean, how can it move forward? Where do you imagine? Give me an idea of where you think it's going to move forward. Well, some of these cases, a company, whether it's Expedia or Sonos or Yelp says, okay, we are the best destination based on what this person has typed in and wants to see.

And Google's promise used to be to take consumers to the best place on the web. Now it takes them to the best place for Google to further monetize that search. And they're not supposed to do that. And so by removing the immunity, what's interesting is rather than going after them for these cases, by removing the immunity, they take a squirt gun and replace it with a gun for all these different companies that feel as if they have been abused. So I think it's actually pretty elegant and smart legislation. Rather than going after them specifically for anti-competitive behavior, they're saying, okay, let's basically Sonos and Yelp and all these other guys that rightfully are saying monopoly abuse is putting us out of business. They've shown up to a gunfight with a square gun.

They're going to give them a gun. They're going to say, all right, you will have purchase in courts. These companies are no longer immune. They're no longer considered nascent technology companies that have some sort of blanket immunity from these types of cases. And the question is, given the election coming up, which side will be tougher on tech? I think either one. I think no matter after this coronavirus crisis finishes, I think both sides are sort of spoiling for doing something about this.

I think eventually these things happen. So you think it's going to happen? You do think? I do. I don't know if Joe Biden's ever thought about it. He's talked about Section 230 somewhat incoherently, I'll be honest with you about it. Many people talk about Section 230 incoherently, but he's talked about a number of things. I actually asked Ron Klain about it because he's a top advisor. He was the chief of staff to Joe Biden when he was

vice president, and he is working with him very closely. And, you know, he's very tech forward. He worked for Steve Case and Ron did. But I think, you know, I think they're looking at a range of things. I think they can't avoid it if it's the Biden, if Biden is the president, he is the presumptive candidate. And in the case of Trump, I do think Bill Barr is working on it. So it'll be interesting to see if the tech companies are able to sort of slough this off or it just becomes inevitable that something has to be done. Because you're right, owning the rails, the marketplace, and every single PowerPoint along the way just is not good for competition. So we'll see.

There's a lot of things happening by different groups, and eventually it will coalesce around something, whether it's the FTC, whether it's Senator Klobuchar, whether it's Senator Hawley and Senator Blumenthal. And so I do think it will coalesce. And I don't think Elizabeth Warren's going away, by the way. She's still in the Senate, by the way. No way.

She's the best. All right. We're going to take time for a quick break, and we'll be back after this with listener mail and predictions. 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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Hey, Scott and Kara. This is Abby Weiss from Key West, Florida. Is it possible Amazon could secure an abundance of COVID-19 testing kits and sell them to prime subscribers or the general public at a loss? This seems like an ideal introduction to Amazon Care and product launch of other healthcare disruption services currently in the pipeline. Thanks to your challenging commentary since the iPhone episode, my boyfriend has become a convert

and no longer refers to Pivot as that yelling podcast. Cheers and thanks to you both. Oh my God, that yelling podcast. Listen to me, I'm to yell right now. Abby, that's genius. Yes. I think it was a great idea for Amazon. Are you kidding? We'd all be like, we'd all be all tucked in our beds with like soup delivered to us if Amazon was running the show. I just got one word to respond to that idea. Woof. Yes. And interesting. Seattle's at the center of this. That's interesting because Seattle's at the center of this crisis in this country with most of the cases starting Yes. And interesting, because Seattle's at the center of this.

This crisis in this country, with most of the cases starting there, and very heavy problems. And they're doing, you know, Governor Inslee and the mayor of Seattle are all doing very strong things, closing down things. A hundred percent. And so, you know, Amazon launched its virtual care clinic for its Seattle-based employees about three weeks ago, if you remember. Obviously, COVID-19

is, there's 273 confirmed cases and 20 deaths. This is, I think that's a great idea. Like, this is exactly what you're talking about. The government isn't going to get this done. There's going to be private insurance doing this. But why go through this antiquated system of going to your doctor? Like, the idea, I thought about getting tested. I'm like, oh, I can't even think about how that would happen. It's so non-easy and so full of friction that, you know, something like this where they deliver it or they create these swab things. Apparently, you just have to do a swab in your nose and make it happen faster. I think that's a great idea. I mean, I don't know.

There's so much there. So, first off, and I'm asking because your brother's a doctor. I don't know this. But is testing just one way, or does it have to go back to a lab? Can you self-test, or do you need to send it back? No, it needs to go to a lab. But there's a lot of things of getting it done faster.

The reason why initially they didn't pick the WHO test is because it took two to six days or something like that. It takes a few days. And there's stories after story in the press about how people are just still waiting for the results unless you're an NBA player or Tom Hanks in Australia, for example. Or a celebrity. Yeah. Well, he's in Australia, though, but it works in Australia. So they're bringing it down to a few hours. There's something at the Cleveland Clinic and some other things that are going on. But exactly, we've got to have,

like, there's nothing wrong with applying a private company solution is if it can be done right. And I think for Amazon, this would be a win to be involved in this. Absolutely. We talked about this. There's a void of leadership here. We have some, regardless of what you think about their, you know, these are leaders. And these are smart people, and they are incredibly well-resourced. And let's look at Governor Inslee.

I think he's a leader. I think he's smart. I think he's trying to be innovative. Didn't you call him dreamy also? Oh, he is dreamy. Yeah. He is dreamy. I've met him.

He's very dreamy. He looks like a whiskey commercial. Anyways, you know, when I'm fighting COVID-19, I go with Valentines. Anyways, the guy, but think about this. This should be an opportunity. Yeah. The president or the head of the CDC or Vice President Pence should have Inslee on the fence and governor. Yeah. You've shown extraordinary leadership here. What can Vice President Pence should have Inslee on the fence and governor. Yeah.

You've shown extraordinary leadership here. What can we learn from you? How can we work with you? Is there a way that you could get Microsoft and Boeing and whoever to take this? Find the state and the governor with the most resources who's doing the best job and then say, how do we get this out to the other 49 states? Instead, oh, the president called the governor a snake. Yeah, he did. So do you think Governor Inslee might think,, oh, the president called the governor a snake. Yeah, he did.

So do you think Governor Inslee might think, you know, I think he's a good man. I think he will absolutely do what's right for his state and his country. But is he on good, fluid working terms with the president? It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And now, if Amazon did this, what do you think the president would say? If Amazon did something heroic like this, and it would be heroic if they did it right. They're not even thinking that way. They're thinking about how does it make us look if someone else gets credit? Right. That's what I mean. But if it's Amazon and Jeff Bezos, he's already got Trump is already at war with Jeff Bezos. He'll probably like. But the thing is, everybody, it would work. I suspect it's Amazon with its distribution system,

its ability to reach people. You know, I think there's all kinds of private solutions to this, but you're right. It's got to be done. Take the supply chain of Apple. Right. Take the CRM technology of Salesforce. Yep. Take the technology and software and interface of Microsoft

with their Teams and their, I forget what we call it, their video conferencing technology. Take the fulfillment network of Amazon and let's get on this shit. When the Germans rolled into Poland and Slovakia, we went to Maytag and said, hey, can you build B-19s? And they said, you know we can. And so I think this is that opportunity for those guys. I agree. More to the point, when I need Diet Cherry Coke immediately, I know I can rely on Amazon to get it, like, at any hour of the day and night.

It's absolutely true. We have changed our logistics, and there's so many ways that people are used to it. Diet Cherry Coke. I love Diet Cherry Coke. That's the best thing I've heard all day. Granted, it's been a low bar, but that is the best thing I've heard all day. Thoughts and prayers. You are the Purell in my life, jungle cat.

Let me just say. That is the first smile I've had all day. Thank you. Thoughts and prayers, Tom Hanks. Diet cherry Coke. I just want to say thoughts and prayers, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks. Thoughts and prayers. Predictions.

Scott, I need a prediction from you, and then we got to get out. I hear you're traveling somewhere. Yeah, I'm going to where it's safer. I'm going to Mexico. So anyway, look, there's going to be some very interesting... Wait a second. Are you like one of those rich people escaping? That's what you're doing. You're escaping, aren't you? I'm just one of those people escaping. I don't have land in New Zealand. I'm not like one of those people. All right. Anyways. So, look, a few things are going to happen here. Right.

I think this might be the starting point or the starting gun for the disruption in education and healthcare that everyone has been waiting on. Oh, I like that. And what's happened at NYU and Columbia and Fordham, they all shut down within 24 hours of each other because nobody wants to be the school that decided to stay open and became ground zero for the, you know, became a hot zone. So, we've all closed and we've all been doing these seminars and online case studies to helping the faculty, which tend to skew older and tend not to be, tend to over-index on technological incompetence. And we've all been sharing tips and I'm boasting now, but I've been doing online classes. I've been doing one online class for every course I've had such that I could have the flexibility to travel for business. So I've been doing this for five years using Zoom, Hangouts. All of a sudden, all of the faculty across America and people who want

to learn are getting comfortable with the technologies and format of online learning. And there's tricks and trades. They have to have their video camera on so they don't go to the refrigerator. You have to randomly call on them so they stay crisp and sharp, right? Otherwise, they just doze off and start, you know, doing whatever it is 21-year-olds do. But we're about to see a distribution, just as how Amazon could help by ensuring that healthcare gets distributed so that such that emergency rooms and healthcare isn't overrun. We have been so focused on universities and we've been space constrained, which has led to a finite number of seats, which has led to good kids not being able to get in,

which in my opinion has fueled income inequality. I think that this massive learn-at-home experiment that's going on, in addition to this work-at-home experiment, could be the breakthrough we're looking for in terms of beginning to disrupt online education. I'm going to press you. Give me, since you're an expert at this and you are online all the time, I mean, everything I open up, there's Scott screaming at me on the yelling show. What, give tips for other professors, since you are at the, you are a pioneer in this area. What, give me three things besides turning on the camera, like very specific, what they have to do if they wanted to do it tomorrow.

Well, the first thing is, and this goes back to the greatness is in the agency of others. The first thing I did was I got Drew Burrows, who's our tech and operations person here, and said, all right, I'm doing an online class. I think I know how to use this, but you need to be there with me spoon feeding. And because you can learn what buttons to push on Zoom, but unless you understand it,

unless you understand how to troubleshoot, inevitably when 300 people show up to your class at 6 p.m., something's going to go wrong and you're going to panic. So I think for the first two or three classes, at least, you have to have what I'd call, you know how there's a flight officer or a weapons officer behind you in an F-15? No, I don't know that, but go ahead. Well, you know, you saw Top Gun. I'm going to be seeing it unless they delay it. You had Goose. You had Goose in the back working on the missile firing, working on the technology such that Maverick could focus on flying the plane. You need your Goose for the first several sessions. You need a tech person

because the majority of us don't have a background in technology. You need to absolutely overanimate. You need to pretend you're reading a kid, your 8-year-old, a bedtime story. And that level of animation needs to happen to your teaching. Oh, I need to do that on our YouTube channel. Hi, people. I'm over-animating. That's 100% right, Kara. Hi.

Because there's an intensity and electricity to person to person that you lose. Okay. And you have to compensate for it by being animated and loud. And jazz hands. Inflection of your, 100%. I'm doing jazz hands right now. Variance in your voice. And then you got to get in their face.

Within 15 minutes, you got to be calling on them. Right. And if someone's not paying attention, you say, look, if you want me to cash your parents check for seven grand, that's your business. But I'm going to come back in three minutes. And if you don't have a better answer, I'm going to turn on your video, and we're going to stop there. So you have to be in their face. Well, you can see them.

That's right. You can see them. That's right. Can they block you? Goose, over-animated. You're reading a kid's story. Yeah. And you have to hold them accountable and be in their face rapid fire.

All right. Scott, this is great. This is a great prediction. This is very useful, too, for the people in this time of tech, in the time of right, Scott, this is great. This is a great prediction. It's very useful, too, for the people in this time of tech, in the time of coronavirus, as they like to say. Everyone, don't forget,

Pivot is on YouTube. Again, I'm trying to be animated, but I think it's not working very well. You can find us on youtube.com slash pivot. And don't forget, we love your questions. If you have a question about the story you're hearing in the news, email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show.

Scott, would you please stay safe? And please wash your hands. You're such a voice of calm. I feel much better after speaking with you, Tara. Do you? Well, listen to my Ron Kleene and you will feel even better because there's a way out of this. There's always a way out of this. And the chaos that it feels like is only because of the way it's being conducted at the top.

Oh, 100%. The bad news is these things always happen. The good news is they always end. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would read the credits so that you can get out of here. 100%, Kara. So today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Our executive producer is Erica Anderson.

Special thanks to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burrows. Please download the podcast, subscribe, socially distance. Be safe. We are thinking about you. America has faced much bigger foes than this, and we have overcome them. Listen, Winston Churchill. I'm going to read us out with a quote. I'm going to read us out with a quote. I'm going to read us out with a quote by Livvy. Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.

Go on. That is a deep thought. Go on. All right. We will see you. When will we see you? We'll see everybody on Tuesday. We'll hear from them or they'll hear from us for a breakdown of all things tech and business.

Have a great weekend, Carol. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works.

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