Pivot - The Billionaire Tax Bites the Dust, Big Tech’s Q3, and Tesla’s Worth a Trillion

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

Kara and Scott discuss the latest on Sen. Ron Wyden’s proposed billionaire tax, Big Tech’s Q3 results coming in strong, and testimony from YouTube, Snap, and TikTok. Also, Tesla is now worth a trillion, and what Kara’s Twitter followers wanted Facebook’s new name to be, revealed. Plus, Scott’s predicts Time's 2021 Person of the Year. Send us your Listener Mail questions, via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration,

and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And daddy's rocking the City of Angels. What are you doing there? The air is a little drier. The sunburn's a little bit brighter. San Bernardino Mountains

are a little more majestic when the dog's in town. I'm in LA, Kara. I'm in LA. Why are you in LA? Why are you allowed to go to California at all? But nonetheless, why are you there? You were there with me last time you were there. I was with you. Yes. I'm speaking at UCLA. Oh, right. I saw that picture.

That was nice. That was a nice picture of you. Isn't that nice? I walked on campus yesterday. I'm meeting with the chancellor, who is easily the most important person that I know. Yeah. And then I am headed to Vegas with a bunch of fraternity brothers. How cliche. Oh, brothers. How cliche.

How cliche. Oh, Scott. Oh, I need to get a backup. I need to get a backup when you get canceled there. What stays in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. Oh, you should plan on it at any time. We literally need someone in the wings. I am.

I already am. Oh, no. I have like, you know how people have apocalypse closets? I have a Scott Galloway co-host closet when Scott Galloway canceled. You know, Cara, I'm only being mildly, or I'm sort of being serious. If you have people who love you and you're economically secure, you have an obligation to speak your mind and live your life, Cara. I know that. Number one regret of people on their deathbeds. What?

Number one regret. Not being obnoxious. Is that they didn't live the life they wanted to lead. Yeah. They led a life that the world, their parents, and society wanted them to lead. It doesn't mean you have to say stupid things. Like, for example, Joe Rogan talking about Pete Buttigieg. What a horse's ass he has become. I'm sorry. We're going from me going to Vegas to Joe Rogan's stupid comments?

Oh, no. You're going to have a good time. Have a good time. That's what you call false equivalence in the world of Georgetown journalism. I know. No, no, not at all. Not at all.

You should do what you want. In-N-Out Burger, UCLA. Good. I went out, I was on, so we should talk more about me. So I was on the roof deck of the Astoria last night. A friend of mine is like a super agent. Yeah.

And I met this really nice young guy who's starting some ridiculous startup. When I'm here, I don't give honest feedback. I'm like, that sounds like a great idea. And then I met this woman who this really like spectacularly hot woman. I don't see looks, but someone told me she was spectacularly hot. And she's a model and now she's an actress and that's not working out. So she's thinking about writing and I'm like, that's a great plan. Oh no. That's a great plan. Don't do that. I fly in thinking about writing. And I'm like, that's a great plan. Oh, no. That's a great plan. Don't do that.

I fly in here, In-N-Out Burger. Everything is awesome. Good, good. I'd say bring me one back. But those have a shelf life of 15 minutes, including the fries. You got to eat them right then. Oh, you want to eat that hot? You got to eat that stuff hot.

I also went to Big Five Sporting Goods where I bought my first boogie board. Oh, wow. You're really going to town, aren't you? Oh, my God. I love it here. I absolutely love it here. you? Oh, my God. I love it here. I absolutely love it here. You know, I do, too. I love Los Angeles.

I am not one of the detractors. I love Los Angeles. I hate when people insult it. I'm like, good, leave. It's fantastic. In-N-Out Burger and hot people everywhere. What's not in the weather? The weather?

It is a really fun place. I've always had good memories of Los Angeles. So we must move on to talk about actual things. So Facebook is getting a new name, apparently. I did a Twitter poll, just so you know, nobody knows what it is yet. And even though Meta and Horizon are being bandied about as the possible names, they did not win. What won was this Zucks. What do you think? I still like Skynet. Really? I think they should just call themselves Skynet. Really? I think they should just call themselves Skynet. There's one, I had so many suggestions from people, death, you know, COVID-19.

They had a whole bunch of stuff. I think it'd be hilarious. I think it would really show some humor on their part because they're coming across as total humorless fucks right now. Yeah, they are. I think they should announce they're changing their name to Tobacco. That would be funny. Let's see what kind of response they get.

They have no sense of humor. This group of people does not have a sense of humor. Although I misspelled, I wrote a column that was somewhat eviscerating to Mark Zuckerberg, and I put the wrong name for one of the executives, and he was very funny. And he's finally talking to me, at least one Facebook executive,

at least on Twitter is talking to me. But we'll see what the name is. What is yours? Okay, it's supposed to be either Horizon or Meta. Which one do you prefer? But it could be something else. I think they should follow after Kanye. Instead of calling themselves Yee, I think they should just say we're okay.

Oh, okay. Just change the name to okay. It could be FB, I guess, right? No, they'll do something around the metaverse. I think Meta's a great name, and they own it. To me, that's the best name except I can't imagine like

like meta addiction meta you know meta insurrection I can't imagine that the shit that's gonna fly if they call themselves

meta okay I don't know nobody will care I just think that Mark Zuckerberg should change his name to

Scott Gallo no inmate 4351B. That's the name I'm hoping he gets very soon. That is not happening. That is not happening. But by the way, Facebook's not the only one. We should be focusing on all of them.

Representatives from YouTube, Snap, and TikTok testified before Congress this week. A TikTok vice president dodged a question about the company's collection of biometric data. Problematic. Why do you need all of this personal data, especially on our children, which seems to be more than any other platform collects? Senator, many outside researchers and experts that look at this have pointed out that TikTok

actually collects less data than many of our peers. And on the keystroke issues. Outside researchers that you're paying for? No, Senator. The three companies agreed parents should be able to erase all online data of children or teens. This is Congress is really zeroing in on kids. Google ruled out that feature this week. But they're zeroing in on kids. But it's so wide ranging.

I think that's what we have to keep in mind. I can't just say we've saved the teens of America and then move on. I hope they don't do that. Yeah. I've been, I've been thinking a lot about this and I think in 20 years, Kara, I think we're going to look back on this era and we're going to think, okay, I think we'll have a lot of regrets. I think we'll say we probably should have broken them up sooner. We should have regulated them. You know, we should have, we should have paid more attention to the algorithms. There's so many things I think we're going to look back and regret.

Hands down, I think our biggest regret and our biggest disappointment will be the following. How did we let this happen to our kids? Oh, yeah. I think there's, when the peer-reviewed research comes out about what it's like to have your full self thrusted in your face 24 by 7, to have no safe places with your family, I used to, in seventh grade...

Where did you hide Scott Galloway? Well, I used to, like a lot of people, I got bullied a little bit. And in some instances, it was probably helpful in terms of negotiating and avoidance skills. You establish skills. But I remember not walking down the hallway after homeroom, I'd go outside and around because Charles Mayfield and this guy named Don Peebles, who I'm pretty sure are both assistant managers at like Hyundai now. By the way, just check out the dog. Check out the dog.

He's in L.A. talking to actress, model, whatever. Yeah. Anyways, but I don't think that's necessarily a terrible thing. I do. But what if there are no hallways you can avoid 24 by 7? I agree. What if someone who decides to come after you, there's no escaping them. You do something stupid. There's no way to retreat to anything

resembling. You're constantly thrust in front of a mirror of your full self. Little Scotty Galloway. I do. I don't like any of it. I don't like what's going on now, and I don't like what was going on then. I don't like it. I would have taken care of that if we were in high school. I would have protected you. I think a little bit of it is good, actually. I think you figure out coping mechanisms, you survive. No one should be traumatized. But going back to this notion we talked about last week,

and it's just totally blown my mind, and I'm asking parents this, at the age of 16, would you rather give your daughter, your son, a bottle of Jack, some marijuana, or would you rather have them on social media all the time? Yeah, not on social media. And what I don't get, Kara, what I don't get in a word or term I want to hear more in Congress is age-gating. Why does a 14-year-old need to be on social media?

Well, the only thing is, I have to say, my son was, you know, who doesn't like all the friend stuff, but he watches a lot of memes. They both say, my son was, you know, who doesn't like all the friend stuff, but he watches a lot of memes. They both watch a lot of memes, funny stuff, and he showed me a whole bunch. It's like a lot of cooking stuff. So there's like lots of good things.

It's just that it's just zeroed out by other things. But let's move on to other news, bad news for the news business. Traffic to most sites was down relative to this time last year. This is what Trump predicted. There's no Trump bump,

which I kind of am fine with. So these are the 50 biggest news sites in English. Washington Post, Fox News lost more than 20% of their traffic. New York Times, BuzzFeed, Business Insider also got double-digit declines. Some sites got more traffic, like WSJ.com and Yahoo Finance. But, you know, it's just, there is a lot of news. It just isn't crazy enragement news, I think, is what it is, is what's happening. I think there's a few trends. One, the internet, I mean, everyone talks, complains about the two internets, the internet and then the internet behind the Great Firewall of China, right? Yes. There really is, there's three.

There's the internet, and then there's the internet, the majority of the West is behind a firewall, and the firewall is three bricks. It's Google, Facebook, and Amazon. And slowly but surely, those companies are so dominant in terms of their share of traffic that everybody else that doesn't have the capital, the skills, the search engine, the first-party data, whatever it is, just is fighting over fewer and fewer and smaller crumbs. And in this instance, it's just the ability to garner someone's attention online. Also, I think that there is a preoccupation with money and crypto right now. And some of that is good. I think financial literacy at a young age is a great thing. I think that's one of the wonderful things about YouTube, quite frankly, is developing financial literacy at a young age is a great thing. I think that's one of the wonderful things about YouTube, quite frankly, is developing financial literacy at a young age

and Reddit and Wall Street Bets. I think there's a lot of benefit there. But we're obsessed with crypto and money and also novelty and conspiracy theory just gets a lot more play online. It's just much more interesting. And so Washington Post and the New York Times, whatever you say about them,

don't really traffic in that stuff. And it's boring. It's just not as fun, right? It's not as interesting. Right. What are your thoughts? You're in this business. I just, it's just, look, people like, enragement equals engagement.

And I think it's just, everyone's not checking every five, I'm not checking every five seconds, right? And the news is long and slow, which we're going to get to in a minute. And it's a little harder to understand, like the infrastructure bill, et cetera, Afghanistan, whatever it is. And so, and it's somewhat glum. And then there's climate change, like what part of California, et cetera, is on fire or being flooded. And so, I think, you know, Trump is entertainment in a lot of ways. And I'm fine with that. It's just we've got to figure out a way to improve our information diet in a way that's substantive and maybe

not rely on it for these dopamine hits of whatever happens to be the crisis of the day. And it moves so quickly as we talked with Pamela Paul ongoing. We've got to get to the big story, but I just want to note, and I'm just going to leave it there, Tesla is now worth $1 trillion. I'm going to

leave it there. Can you leave it there? I'm going to leave it there. I'm just going to leave it there. Tesla is now worth $1 trillion. I'm going to leave it there. Can you leave that? I'm going to leave it there. I'm just going to leave it there. Can you leave that? Hertz ordered 100,000 Teslas. Yeah. Just crazy. Just crazy. Just leave it there.

Just leave it there. Think about this. With all the supply chain, Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, was on CNBC last night, of General Motors was on CNBC last night, and she was saying that, and just kept talking about supply chain issues, and the whole time I'm thinking, how on earth has Tesla figured this out?

Is it because they have fewer components, because they don't have internal combustion? That's a good question. But distinct of all the bullshit, all the excuses in supply chain, I shouldn't say bullshit, but legitimate excuses, all the automakers are claiming every time anything goes wrong. Tesla, for some reason, Tesla's figured it out. They have beat every number.

I am going to email Elon Musk and ask him. I'm going to ask him a supply chain question. And I'd be curious to know how many components and moving parts there are in a Tesla, because if there's half as many, it exponentially decreases your supply chain interruption probability. I shall ask. I shall ask. All right, but we have to go down to the big story. Our first big story, a tax on billionaires may be dead right out of the gate.

Democrat Ron Wyden proposed a tax on Americans with more than $1 billion in assets who make more than $100 million for three consecutive years. The tax would target unrealized capital gains, which I think a lot of people were concerned about. And guess who doesn't like the plan? Billionaires, including Elon Musk, speaking of which he tweeted, eventually they run out of people's money and they come for you.

I'm shocked, Cara. I'm shocked. Someone who's gotten a lot of money from the government and continues to is the take on him on that. Democrats want a new source of funding for the Build Back Better plan. Republicans and Senator Kyrsten Sinema want back increases on the corporate tax rate. Joe Manchin and Richard Neal, the Ways and Means, spoke against it. This tax would apply to fewer than 800 Americans. What do you think? They don't want to attack rich people.

than 800 Americans. What do you think? They don't want to attack rich people. I just feel really bad for Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin because, Cara, I really think they hate the attention. I just think they hate all this attention they're getting, Cara. I think it's really uncomfortable for them. For what appears to be good people

with fairly mediocre intellects to be the stars of the global political stage, I think they hate it. I just think they hate it. And I don't think it's influencing and encouraging them to be total obstructionists such that we'll look back and think, well, you know, the government didn't do its job

because a bunch of narcissists decided that it was their time to get their 15 seconds of fame. I just, I feel bad for them. I feel bad for them. Anyways. In other words, they're fatuous poppin' J's, as I like to call people, yeah. But this is really interesting, and that is it tries to go at the heart of something we've been talking about a while.

And that is in a low-interest rate environment with massive increases in equity, you can essentially explode your wealth and never pay taxes. So this attempts to get around that and says, okay, regardless of whether you trigger a tax event, if you dramatically increase your wealth, you should have some obligation to the Commonwealth. I think conceptually it works. Nobody likes that. They like the rich, the really rich people. We fetishize them. We fetishize these people.

Well, that's the problem though, is we should absolutely, we have to make a decision here. First off, I understand pay as you go, but I think a more responsible thing to do is to make money and then decide how you're going to spend it, as opposed to spending it and then trying to come up with ways to make it. And what this demonstrates is a couple things. One, the Biden administration is playing with a very weak hand, with 50 senators and two that are jonesing from the camera constantly and find a way to jones for the cameras to disagree

with their party. They have to go to theones for the cameras to disagree with their party, they have to go to the path of least resistance. And they're like, okay, let's tax corporations. No, they're powerful and people like them. Okay, let's tax people making over $400,000 a year. No, there's too many of them. I know, let's go after Bezos and Musk. That's what this is.

This is a Bezos-Musk tax. There are basically 10 people that would pay 50% of the money raised from this. There's 800 people that would be affected here. Yeah, but 10 of them would account for 50%. Just a helpful fact,

billionaires currently hold $5 trillion worth of wealth. $3.5 trillion of it is in stocks. And Nancy Pelosi estimates the tax could raise over $200 billion, spread out over 10 years. That's a lot of clams. Yeah, and about three of that 5 trillion has been accrued since the first infection was announced 18 months ago in the US. And you think, okay, we used to put people in jail for war profiteering.

That's not what this is, let me be clear. But should, in a time of crisis, should our most powerful and our most fortunate be exploding their wealth? So I do think there's opportunity. Let me ask you. Take the other side. Take their side. So one writer compared it to taking chips from a gambler before they've cashed out. Is that a fair comparison?

Is it more like property tax and homeowner's pay review? Take the other side. Take the Elon Musk side for a second. Be smart, Scott Galloway, in that regard. Well, this is class warfare. You're basically targeting a small number of individuals, to be fair. You have a situation that's going to discourage holding on to stock, potentially, because you're taxed on it. I personally think the best argument against this,

and no one's talking about this, these are the most mobile people in the world. When France tried to institute a wealth tax, the wealthiest man in Europe, Bernard Arnault, moved to Belgium. Yeah, moved. And when you have a tax that is this, what I call targeted,

in some, we have a big, this should catalyze a bigger discussion. And that is, if we want to be a state that has a larger, government plays a larger role in the health and well-being of people who aren't doing as well. And I'm in favor of that. And you call, okay, call me a socialist, call me Northern European, but everybody has to pay for it. And what does that mean? It means billionaires need to pay a lot more. I'm actually more in favor of a wealth tax across everybody that makes more than $400,000. But when you're literally backed into a corner and you're like, okay, let's find the most unpopular 10 people and develop a tax around them, I don't think it survives.

I don't think it endures. Yeah. Because those 10 people can figure out a way around it. So what do we do? How do we raise the money? Oh, you know what we do, Kara? What? I'm asking you this. Okay. So is it corporate taxes? Is it an increase in tax rates for people making over 400 grand?

Is it potentially an alternative minimum tax for corporations because everyone from FedEx to Nike didn't pay any taxes. The answer is yes, all of the above. Taxes across every cohort, except for the lower and middle class, their taxes have actually stayed the same, have gone down. It is time to have – we got to start managing our house more responsibly. Yeah. So I think it's all of it. That's Manchin's argument. But I think when you go...

That's Manchin's argument. But I think when you... What's that? That's one of Manchin's arguments, but go ahead. But I think when you target essentially what is a group of billionaires, and also it's a weird... There's some unintended consequences here. If you're one of the Waltons,

or if you're someone who's already paid taxes on your wealth, and you're just wealthy, you don't get taxed. It's really what it is. It's about the people who have made a ton of, have amassed incredible wealth in the last three to five years. So it just feels like Biden said, okay, who are the least popular people in the world that I can cram this through my narrow margin? And like, okay, let's go after Bezos and Musk. But sadly, it's not going to happen to them. They'll get to keep their giant sums of money and swim in it.

I agree. I don't think it's going to go through. I think this is tenuous. Yes, tenuous. I think it's tenuous. What do you think? You know, I just think people do not want to tax really rich people. They just don't. And there's always someone in the way in Congress.

And it says it's anti-business, this and that. So whenever business gets a poke in the side, they get out of it. That's what happens. So I don't know. I don't know. You're right. We're going to have to do it through conservation the same way we probably have to do it with climate change, right? Eliminate capital gains. Everyone pays regular, everyone pays ordinary income. Yeah. But they aren't going to do that. That's a big one. Restore. Well, let's go back to the future. Taxes in the 80s, there was no capital gains

and ordinary income. There was just capital. There was just income gains. Let's take corporate tax rates back to the oppressive rates they were pre-Trump. Well, it's sort of very nimby, right? The economy is still doing really well. If it's in my area, no. If it's in their area, yes. And so that's why they lose in this case.

So anyway, just probably less government is what's going to happen. That's not true. Bigger deficits. That's true. Bigger deficits. You're right. Correct. The Democrats and Republicans both agree on big government. That's right. We are a big government state now. We are in bigger deficits. Big deficits. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Google's third quarter results and take a listener mail question.

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but this was a nice result. YouTube's ad revenue went up to over $7 billion. Microsoft also beat estimates with heavy growth in its cloud services. Not a surprise given the pandemic and people availing themselves to these things. Apple's privacy and advertising changes hit snap, but not so much Google. So what thinks you of these, Mr. Stock Market? I mean, this is a blowout quarter for Google. I think YouTube could be spun and be worth a trillion dollars on its own. It's great to have first-party data.

I think the Facebook results— Explain first-party data to people so they understand. Well, when you have data from people on their email, on their search, on YouTube, and you can build a digital corpus that's constructed of different types of flesh or different types of data caught from different areas, and you can centralize it all. You have first-party data to create basically a digital corpus of somebody such that you can more accurately serve ads, and you get higher price premiums.

And in the case of Google, they're not only the marketplace, but they're the buyer and the seller. And from an antitrust perspective and a competitive perspective. Well, the DOJ could file another antitrust suit against Google for its advertising practices. Google legally is the most guilty of what you would call anti-competitive behavior. Yeah, I agree. But their quota was blown. What's interesting is I actually think the most interesting thing was Facebook barely, slightly missed on revenues, slightly beat on EPS.

And here's what I think is going on. And I have no, I don't have evidence of this and no one will because they hide the ball. Every quarter, Facebook has to delete tens of millions of accounts. I mean, I think they've deleted like a billion fake accounts. If I were in the midst of a shitstorm like this, where the analysts were starting to say, okay, it's Apple's new privacy tactics, or basically giving people the ability to opt out on iOS, everyone's looking for evidence of that in the earnings call. And so maybe I say to the CFO or the CAO, you know what? Don't clear out, don't delete as many fake accounts this month, which will give us another 100 million accounts and more inventory and more revenues, just such that we can beat. And if you look at Facebook's numbers, they usually beat like crazy.

Yeah, they did. So I thought the Facebook earnings were somewhat, I don't know if, I wouldn't call them bad, but I really wonder if, in fact, this is beginning to take a toll on Facebook. But Google's data points are more diverse and more robust. And Google, I mean, it's just an incredibly well-run company firing on all cylinders right now. And it's not getting scrutiny as it should. I think the press should move their scrutiny to YouTube and Google. And I think the government certainly will. They haven't forgotten.

They just have a perfect villain in Mark Zuckerberg, and we fall prey to that, too. That's exactly right. And Sundar's lovely, and it's kind of amorphous, and the founders are gone. I think it's interesting. And what was interesting is Shopify missed estimates. That was interesting. I didn't see that. That's interesting.

Shopify missed. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. Oh, by the way, you know who got public yesterday? Who? I predicted they would not get public, and they did. Rent the runway. Rent the runway. There it is. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. Oh, by the way, you know who got public yesterday? Who? I predicted they would not get public, and they did. Rent the runway. Rent the runway.

There it is. We'll see how it goes. Stock off 10%, so it's already one of the lesser performing IPOs, but congratulations to them. They got public. All right. Okay. I mean, get this.

A $1.6 billion market cap. They have 100,000 active users. Yeah, that's a lot. That is, I think, about 60. Shit, what is that? I should know this. 100,000 times 1,000 is 100 million, 16,000. A lot of money per user is what this thing is being valued at.

And I just don't. Anyways, I need to put my anger aside. Congratulations to Rent the Runway and the founders. They're both impressive women. And they got out. You can't get them all right. Tesla, trillion. Don't got out. You can't get them all right. Tesla, trillion. Shh, don't say anything.

You know something? I feel a heaviness in your soul right now. I feel a darkness. That's because you're in LA and I'm here in DC. I'm not. I'm here in cold. Oh my God, the dog is awesome in Los Angeles. Yeah, I wish I was in Los Angeles right now.

Hola. I wish I was. Oh wait, you were acting didn't work out and now modeling isn't working? That's a great idea. You should write. You should write. You should be a model, Scott. All right.

Let's pivot to a listener question and stop with the LA dreaming. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hi, Karen Scott. My name is Jim Guilfoyle. I'm a certified financial planner in Orange County, California. Hey, my question is regarding your concerns about the amount of information big tech has on us personally.

What do you think would be the impact when big tech decides to aim their guns at retail financial services? Think about it, Google and Amazon in particular, the amount of data and information they know. What do you think that would occur and what sort of disruptive impact you think that would have? And lastly, do you think that even is on their horizon? Hey, thanks, love your show. So, yes, let me just, it is, Jim. You know, they can't buy anything right now. That's the one thing. And financial services companies are really being very creative and doing really well now, as Scott has pointed out dozens of times. I think that these big companies aren't into it as much, although Facebook does have a guy who's very quiet, David Marcus, who's worked on their Libra or whatever you call it, and then who's running all their F2. It's called Facebook Financials, I guess, or Financial. And so I think they're sort of moving in all kinds of things.

They have a digital currency wallet, but they can't buy a lot, right? I would think Amazon would be the one that would probably create products most effectively going forward. But at this point, they can't buy all the more interesting efforts going on. Scott? Yeah, this is really – I would say if there's one – Big Tech never misses anything. But I'd say if there's one area they probably think we should have invested more is in fintech. Because I don't think anyone anticipated – just like Apple probably wishes it had continued with their car program, not recognizing the car market was about to become a trillion-dollar market, capitalization market. I think that – and I think they did not get into banking as aggressively as some of these startups for a couple reasons.

One, they all know Jamie Dimon. And what I mean by that is they're all very close with the big banks because they use them for constant capital raises. They speak at their conferences. constant capital raises. They speak at their conferences. And also the regulatory environment. I think that the general consensus was, do we really want to start competing with Jamie Diamond? It's a regulatory snake, whatever you call it. It's a clusterfuck. We don't want to go there. And so what happened? A bunch of players came in and started. It's the textbook case of disruption. The fintech guys came in and served the communities that banks were ignoring.

The unbanked, remissions payments, the small retailers. And now they're bigger. And now these companies, PayPal, 250 billion. Square, 120 billion. Stripe is supposedly going out at 200 billion. And I think that big tech looks at it and thinks, we had the interface. We could have gotten into this.

We should have done it. We should have done it. We can't buy it. Well, that's exactly right. And that's the point. A lot of people make the point that antitrust isn't what actually changes behavior. It's the threat of antitrust that changes behavior. Right.

That would put them right into the crosshairs. They're already in the crosshairs, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking into how tech giants use consumers' financial data. They're really not in it. Amazon is the one you could see making things, and they haven't really been as active. Because I have a financial relationship with Amazon in a way I don't with Google. I don't use Facebook at all. But, you know, I don't have any financial relationship with Twitter. And your idea that Squarebyte is really interesting. I wouldn't mind necessarily having a financial relationship with Twitter, but I don't. But Amazon is the one I have the most, you know.

And they issue small business loans to its sellers. And they have those kind of programs. No industry drives on trust more than banking. I mean, it's not real estate. It's not personnel. It's like you have to trust that when you press a button and wire money, you have to trust that when you deposit money somewhere.

What would it take for you to move? I was just thinking your giant sums of money, Scott. What would it take for you to move it to a tech giant? Never, never would be my answer. And Amazon, if I had to pick one, would be where I would. Well, that's exactly right because the most trusted brand in the world right now is Amazon. And like you said, they're kind of already in the business of giving you something in exchange for money.

Whereas media companies, you give them your attention and they pelt you with opioid-induced constipation ads. Or convince you that you should check out this extreme dieting site because we've noticed you're 5'6", 105 pounds and 15. dieting side because we've noticed you're 5'6", 105 pounds and 15. Yeah. So, you're used to giving, you're used to an exchange of currency and value with Amazon, which puts them closer to the financial services realm and they're incredibly trusted. They haven't been subject to any like enormous hack. Do you really want to trust Mark Zuckerberg with your money and the economy? Although, you know, I have to say, some of Amazon's stuff, you know, they're accused of interest rates too high

to the small business loans to its sellers. There's a great piece in the New York Times this week by Jodi Kantor and others about how they screwed up their HR system and people got thrown out of work. We talked about that. So they're not, you know, they've got their, they've been focused far too much on consumers,

but I still would be like not giving them my money, not giving my healthcare stuff. I think I would be like not giving them my money, not giving my health care stuff. I think I would be very like, mm-mm, mm-mm. Just like with Facebook and dating. Are you fucking kidding me? Like, no. Not that I'm dating, but nonetheless. You know, I have Apple Pay because of you.

Do you remember this? That's right. That's right. See, but I have a relationship with Apple. Apple, I would. Apple, I would. I wouldn't necessarily have bank of Apple. I don't think I would use bank of Apple.

Do you use Apple Pay? Yes, all the time. Every day. It's great. Every single day. I would use if I had a Google one, I'd use that. Maybe I wouldn't. That's interesting.

But right now, these financial service companies, these digital ones, are doing great, like Square and Stripe and others. And they don't need no stinking bigger tech companies to help them. So send us more. If you've got a question you're curious about, go to nymag.com slash pivot and submit it for the show. Scott, we're going to take one more quick break and we'll be back.

This better be a good prediction. I would like a very good prediction from you. Okay, I'm on it. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees? And it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you,

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. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees, and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, 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. Okay, Scott, give us a City of Angels prediction. That means it's got to be sunny, bright, and forward-looking. I know who 2021's Person of the Year is, Cara.

How? I just know. Tell us. I also know who a future Nobel Prize, it's the same person who's going to win the Nobel Peace Prize. What? They already did. I'm talking about the future. 2021's person of the year.

Yeah. And future Nobel Peace Prize winner. Who? Frances Haugen. Oh, really? Frances Haugen is absolutely going to be person of the year. And I think there's a chance she'll get the Peace Prize. If you think about what's happened the last 10 years, Kara, you, both the people on this podcast.

I should get it then. House subcommittee chairs, co-chairs, the media. Shouldn't Kara Swisher get it? Investors, media people. We have all been railing against big tech. And we are a case study in contrast with Ms. Halligan on the difference between being right and being effective. She has put on a master class.

Look at Facebook right now. Facebook, for their first time, is flat-footed and has no fucking idea what to do. Yeah. They're like, okay. She is out of central casting to do this. Let me get this. A woman from Iowa that's the daughter of professors with a computer science degree who likes tech. It's as if we could recreate Edward Snowden and make him a lot more effective.

And she didn't peace out to Beijing or Moscow. She went to D.C. and said, I'm going to attack this problem head on. Okay. All right. That's fascinating. That's interesting. The rollout here, 17 articles, branded the Facebook papers. Then on 60 Minutes, she has a website and now is coordinating all of these media companies

and dictating who gets to write what and when. All right. I like this. It's interesting. It's creative. Okay. I like it. Okay.

All right. We have been fighting this company. We have been fighting their Panzer tanks on horseback. And she showed up. She showed up with a fucking neutron bomb. It does fit in. I mean, Mark Benioff has been a real critic of Facebook. So you could see. I don't know if he has how much influence he has, even though he owns the thing on the selection.

But that's interesting. No one. We have all showed up with squirt guns to a gunfight. She has shown up with a howitzer. She is going to be Times Person of the Year in 2021, and she's got a pretty good shot for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. All right. Okay. That's a big one. All right. I'm going to go with it. I'm going to let you go there. I don't think the second is true. I think the first is a distinct possibility.

She is going to do for us and for society what all of us have been bitching and moaning about for 10 years. Bitching and moaning? We've been doing the work, Scott. I'm sitting there, my little spoon, digging away. Come on. What have we actually gotten accomplished? We have called, you know what? Interviews, that interview, it's a drip, drip, drip. I don't think, I think we have done, I feel like I've done my work.

The best we have done is we've provided cloud cover for her. This has been genius. Well, I'm just saying, we have identified the problem, provided cloud cover for her. This has been genius. Well, I'm just saying we have identified the problem, so did Maria Ressa, early and often. And I think that's really, I think there's a whole bunch of people. We pat ourselves enough on the back. I'm not patting myself on the back. I think in this case it's deserved.

This woman, Ms. Halligan, has come in and schooled, literally schooled Congress, media, pundits. Although, you know, can I just say there's a really interesting column that Casey Newton did about how some inside say the reading of the comments by insiders are out of context. It's like looking at anybody's Slack. Like, what do they know? But it was interesting. This isn't research and documents presented to management. These are comments on their internal Slack. Yeah, those.

Okay, fine. But I think people inside do know a lot more than they often have a native idea of what's happening there. Anyway, I like this. Okay. All right. Times Person of the Year 2021. Person of the Year. Okay.

Scott, that's a big prediction. And that is the show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more. And we will discuss lots of things, including Tesla and Rent the Runway and some of these other things. We're going to circle back on those things. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and the engineer in this episode.

Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back Tuesday for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Come to the City of Angels. See the dog in his Porsche. He's thinking about getting into modeling.

He's thinking about acting. Or he might write, all are good ideas. All are good ideas. Los Angeles. Thank you. performed by a select few. Well, Clawed by Anthropic is AI for everyone. The latest model, Clawed 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Clawed Sonnet can generate code, help with writing,

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