Pivot - The FTC & the "Algebra of Deterrence"

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

Kara and Scott talk about the FTC's fine on Facebook -- it's basically a "parking ticket". They also talk about the bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday and their social media ban. In wins and fails they talk about the shake-ups at The MarkUp, the Tesla board and Scott's love big Broadway musicals.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm, I'm, who am I, Cara? I'll tell you who I am. I'm Brienne Tarth, commonly known as Brienne of Tarth, a warrior of the House Tarth, vassals of House Baratheon, and now a knight of the Seven Realms, Cara. But what haunts me? What haunts me? Does Jamie Lannister love me? Oh, my God. Does he love me, Kara? She's such a lesbian. Come on. She's an enormous lesbian. You say that like it's a bad thing.

I'm just saying. You say that like it's a bad thing. She needs a girlfriend is what she needs. And she loved the other lady who got killed. Oh, my God. She has been kicking ass and taking names across the seven realms. That's right. That's how we lesbians do it.

We're all becoming mayors of every city across this fine United States of ours, if you've noticed. And there was another one in Florida. Who's that? There's a new lesbian mayor of like one of your big cities there. I forget which one. Tampa? Or an ALM, as I like to call them. Tampa. Chicago. Now I have to run for mayor of San Francisco. And then we'll have like a troika of lesbian mayors girding the country. 100%. That's why you should run for mayor. That's absolutely why you should run.

You know what? We're all brand tarth. That's all I'm saying. Is that how to pronounce it? Whatever. Anyway. Look, I don't want to speak of Game of Thrones this week

because the only thing on my mind is Endgame and the fact that I have not seen it and it's all over the friggin' internet. Do not tell the Endgame. Do not say the Endgame. I'm so, like, worried about finding out. Anyway, let's start. We're going to discuss Only the Avengers. No, we Do not tell the Endgame. Do not say the Endgame. I'm so, like, worried about finding out.

Anyway, let's start. We're going to discuss only the Avengers. No, we're not talking about this anymore. My question... Go ahead. My question about Endgame and the Avengers

is do they make that movie for a man? Oh, yes, they do, and it's called Game of Thrones. And we're done. Okay, and we're out with Game of Thrones.

All right, listen. Big stories. There's so many big stories. I wrote this week. There's Facebook fines. We're going to get Elon Musk doing his robo-taxi thing. We've got deranged Donald. There's so much to talk about.

Let's start with something I wrote this week. They got a lot of attention. Sri Lanka banning Facebook. Banning Facebook, not just Facebook, social media because of trying to get a control of what happened in that country, the terrible tragedy there. And they pre-banned them so that false information wouldn't. What did you think of that? I was kind of for it a little bit. I actually read your article.

And most of the time I read your article, I'm sort of overwhelmed with one word, meh. But this one, you know, you put in there a term. I actually thought it was an important piece. You had a term that I've co-opted and adopted as my own. You used the term spinning up violence. And that perfectly describes what is going on here. Do these firms catalyze it? Are they responsible for it? No, they spin it up. They spin it up. That was from the New York Times. What you said about the notion that you were relieved and a bunch of people kind of chimed in behind you, I thought it was an important notion. What kind of response have you had? Well, a lot of people were relieved. They admitted it. They felt good about it because these companies couldn't get a hold of things and they were worried for the worst. And I thought, all these people died. We don't need more of this because of, you know, they already had anti-Muslim violence there. And this is a country trying to push toward democracy,

unlike a lot of the other ones. And they, of course, did the, you know, if countries can shut things down, then dictators will. I'm like, no, dictators love social media because they take over it. They, you know, look in the Philippines with Duterte or in Turkey and wherever. They don't take it down actually. They abuse it or they use it. And so that was – there are questions.

I wanted to get the debate going. Shutting it down is the worst possible choice. But in some cases, it's the only choice. So what do we do? Except for all the rest. Yeah, exactly. So it was an interesting back and forth. I definitely got First Amendment, getting on their First Amendment fading couches.

And I'm like a backer as a journalist and someone who believes in the free thing. I just think these platforms have not taken the responsibility that old media had in the past, the standards. And they're not liable for it. And therefore, something has to happen. They have to fix it. They just have to fix the situation. So that's what I think. Well, there's a couple things that might happen here.

The first is, so they shut it off. And this goes back to a prediction we made last year. I think a country is going to shut it off and not turn it back on. I think someone's going to decide, OK, my 16-year-old is angry. But other than that, what has happened here? Are cats living with dogs as it started raining frogs? No, we're OK. And they're going to do the math and go, you know what? Maybe we don it started raining frogs. No, we're okay. Yeah.

And they're going to do the math and go, you know what, maybe we don't turn the switch back on. Right. Well, do you think that's the case in some of these countries? They just don't want to deal with it? Because they're used as communications. That was Facebook's argument, and I would agree with them that it's used as a communications vehicle. And the issue is, of course it is, but then what? Like, if they're going to have the responsibility of being that, the issue is, of course it is, but then what? Like, if they're going to have the responsibility of being that, they have to have the responsibility of making it work properly. So, you know, they want all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff. That's my feeling. But why wouldn't a place like Uruguay or Estonia go Chinese? And what I mean by that is China lets these firms in long enough to

steal their IP, kicks them out, props up a local entrepreneur and captures the value creation domestically. Why wouldn't someone say, you know what? You've destroyed our media companies. You have a habit of denying and deflecting when terrible things happen. We're going to kick you guys out. And if a couple of local New Zealanders want to start a social network, more power to them. I think a couple of these nations are going to look at the Western way and go, you know what? We're going Chinese. Yep. Yep. You know, it's interesting. It's an interesting time. And I think you'll see more of it going around. And I think one of the arguments, I think, what if they did it in this country? I'm like, we aren't so dependent on, we have so many outlets of media that it's

a different story. But, you know, of course, it's different from country to country. And it's certainly, you know, you'd worry if like a Donald Trump shut – of course, he doesn't want to shut it down. He likes Twitter, screaming on Twitter. So it's a really problematic and confusing situation, I think. You know, you had the best soundbite of the week, spinning up violence. But you know who came in a close number two? Who? Bob Iger who said Hitler would have loved social of the week, spinning up violence. But you know who came in a close number two? Who?

Bob Iger, who said Hitler would have loved social media. Yeah, that's true. He would have. He would have. That's true. I agree. Where did he say that? That's an unusual thing.

At an event hosted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Oh, wow. This isn't about First Amendment. Fascinating. This stuff is proving to be pretty ugly. He brought the Hitler thing thing and people don't like the movie yeah the hitler move oh interesting well i don't think it's i don't think it's fair to compare them to nazis i would just say it's sort of nazi-ish kind of you know tyrannical

tyrannical ish speaking of tyrannical or steps to tyranny did you see who facebook hired is their new chief legal counsel i saw that and saw that. And a PR person too. They hired a big PR person to replace Karen Maroney. They did. Yes, this is to replace Colin Stretch. Yes, this is an interesting character, person, Jennifer Newstead. She's got a history on her. She helped write The Patriarch, which is not – Yeah.

Go ahead, Scott. Scary, right? Incredibly. Yeah? Incredibly. Yeah. Incredibly. I get the sense you're waiting for me to go gangster. So you want to maintain your credibility. You're like, no, you jump on the fire here.

You know what? I never talked to Colin Stretch ever, so I don't really care. So go ahead. I'm sure she's not going to call me after lunch. So Ms. Newstead is clearly a very talented person, scatting arps, clerked for Justice Breyer, and will be known as the individual that was sort of the tonic that washed down what ultimately legislation that was deemed as unconstitutional, and I would argue, you know, is the results or resulted in a real loss of moral authority on the part of the U.S. as we figured out a way to justify torture. And we came up with a new name for it, enhanced interrogation. But this is an individual who is very good at washing down very ugly occurrences.

And Sheryl Sandberg put out a press release saying that Ms. Newstead would help them fulfill their mission. And my question to Ms. Sandberg is, what exactly is your mission? Yeah, the law enforcement surveillance powers that was in that act are really quite extreme. I mean, I think a lot of people feel that was sort of the beginning. It's not, you know, China extreme, but it's certainly, you know, someone who's known for walking in with someone who gave law enforcement agency greater surveillance power due to this thing is not probably the best look. I mean, not that they're going to go for an ACLU person, obviously, because no one would do that. So it's problematic.

Sure. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, I think met him many times. Who convinced the world that billionaires are a solution to the problem, not the cause of the problem. And I want to full disclosure, I'm friends with John. I like him a lot. I think he's exceptionally talented. Yeah.

And I think he's gone to the dark side. And I'm just really, I think it's terrible. I think he's going to do a great job for them and we're all going to be worse for it. Yeah, it's interesting. I guess I'm off his Christmas card list. No, that's okay. He worked for Bill Gates, Paul Allen. He was at Google for many years in the Asia Pacific area.

Very talented. And he's from Washington. It would be – it's interesting who he's replacing. Karen Marooney who left and before that, Elliot Trey. Karen has been there for a very long time before that work for Facebook. So it's a new day for Kara Swisher at this company, I think. It's an interesting – it'll be an interesting – it'll be interesting to do. John likes you.

He always asks about you. Oh, does he? Okay. All right. I never really dealt with him. He likes you. He's hoping you'll be the 45th lesbian mayor. Yes, I'm going to be.

All right. Another story. That's a bumper sticker. The fine. The fine. The fine. Let's get to the fine. Oh, gosh. I mean the parking ticket. Exactly. Theotomy. All right. Another story. That's a bumper sticker. The fine. The fine. Let's get to the fine. Oh, gosh. I mean, the parking ticket. Exactly. That's what I just called it. I just finished a column for the New York Times saying that's exactly what I called it, a parking ticket. What the heck, Scott? This is big. How much should they give? No, this is big. Why? Well, first off, okay, so think about what's happened here. Let's step back. A fine. What's the point of government action and fines? The idea is, you know, it's a little bit of retribution. It's a

little bit of a fundraising event, but mostly it's meant to serve as a deterrent. And the algebra around deterrence is pretty simple. And that is the likelihood or the probability of getting caught times the likely fine is greater than the upside of continuing to engage in that illegal activity. Yeah. Right? So the chances of me getting caught doing something, times going to jail, scares the shit out of me, and I don't do a lot of bad things that I might engage in otherwise. Yeah. And what has happened here is that Facebook has unwittingly co-opted the FTC into what is probably the most value accretive day in the history of Facebook.

into what is probably the most value accretive day in the history of Facebook. And that is their stock is up $30 billion this morning, the value of Viacom plus throw in Fiat Chrysler. Why? Because they came out ahead of the fine and said, hey, guess what? In exchange, we can continue to engage in this illegal behavior and it's going to cost us two weeks of income or seven weeks of cash flow. And on hearing that, the marketplace says, fantastic, we're going to take your market cap up 10x the amount of the fine. So not only is this fine not a deterrent, it is enabling this type of behavior. And Tim Wu, Professor Tim Wu at Columbia, I mean, this guy's a gangster. He's written, I think, a really important book called The Curse of Bigness. He has a key point, and that is a key step to tyranny is that the government no longer turns from a countervailing force against private power to a co-conspirator. And that's exactly what has happened here, is that our government agencies are no longer

countervailing forces. They're co-conspirators. And the FTC and the DOJ need to do what happens when you see those signs that says construction, men and women working. If you speed here, the fines are doubled. They need to say, okay, when we're talking about media and privacy, in an instance where it might be spun into violence, as you have articulately said, then we need 10x fines. So my big theme today to the FTC is 10x. Add a zero to that fine and restore the algebra of deterrence. Yeah. Yeah.

The algebra. I sound so indignant and arrogant right now. I'm taking that for the calm. Algebra of deterrence. I'm going to mention you. There you go. I love it. I'm writing it down with my pencil.

There's AOC and there's AOD. Well, you know, AOC would put a zero on the end of that, I'm guessing. I agree. It's just a ridiculously low fine. And, you know, there's all kinds of ideas to fine these companies for things, but it must have been like, oh, phew, $5 billion, that's all, that kind of thing. And it's for what they've done over the past couple of years. That means they're getting off for their behavior.

It's like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Last thing, Google walkout organizers say they're facing retaliation. And Google is saying they're not. And it's an interesting problem when people become essentially – they're not whistleblowers. They want things to change at the company or being public about it. They get impacted. Scott, what do you think? Yeah, well, I've always thought, and you've reinforced this, is that Google is actually a lot more tolerant of dissent than most tech companies.

Usually, yeah. But not in the back part of it, right? They're like, sure, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then it doesn't help you when you've done this if you don't go along to get along. So they're tolerant but not— I mean, realistically, should it help you? Because you're being difficult? Yes.

Yes. You should be able to say— Okay, we won. If you're a company like Google, Google always talks about—they have these meetings. They talk about how everybody counts. If they're going to do that, they should just say, no, we're just Microsoft. So just hush up and sit in the back. That's what I say.

They just go on and on in how open they are. So if they're going to be this way and they want it their way or the highway, then they should say that. Yeah. So, okay. So we can have a conversation around what should happen. I think the conversation is what will happen, and that is if you work for a for-profit public company and you publicly shame them, you better be willing to kill the prince if you're going to stab him or her. And so you're probably throwing yourself on the funeral pyre here because you're the CEO of a company and yeah, you're going to give some lip service to it,

but you don't need individuals going public with your dirty laundry. And more power to her, she might be right. I would argue personally she's probably not being that effective. And there's very few for-profit companies that legitimately want to endorse this type of behavior. And I think a lot of them are open to saying, all right, how do we fix this problem? How do we do it internally? We're very open to this. And my sense from some of your reporting is that Google is actually quite tolerant or quite open. No, no.

What I said is they have all these mechanisms, which I now think are just to let off steam. You know, they have all these boards. They have so many message boards at Google where they all yell at each other from everything from like how the kombucha tastes to, you know, more serious topics. And that is obviously a serious topic. But they talk about that a lot, actually, food on these things. But they argue with each other about lots of things. And they have dozens and dozens of these boards. And then they have these meetings that they have every Friday, what used to be with Larry and Sergey,

where people get to mouth off as much as they want. So it's a very mouth-off culture, but it may be just to let off steam. You're right. Once you start to really go down that road, people really don't tolerate if you keep complaining, unless you are so valuable to the company that you can continue to do that until you are. They also covered up a lot of sexual harassment stuff like in paying people off and being quiet and quietly letting people out the door, which is very typical of every other company in Silicon Valley. It's that hush, leave, here, take this bag of money and leave.

Sexual harasser, for example. So I don't know, Scott. It makes me sad. It makes me sad. It does. It does. It's just like you should be able – this particular culture talked about being open and it's not really open, is it? You're right.

It's just they want to make money and stop complaining and go back to your massage chair immediately kind of thing. Yeah, become a journalist. Run for mayor. That's right. That's what I'm saying, for example. Yeah, but even at companies, if you complain too much, I used to complain a lot about things at the Wall Street Journal. I can tell you they didn't like it too much. Yeah, but I just don't think that's surprising. And I don't think that's going to change. And I think that's the world we live in and that's part of our economic model and it sucks to be a grown-up. I thought you were Brienne of Tarth. Brienne of Tarth wouldn't say this.

She would go in with a sword. Oh, my God. That's unfair. You're right. You know what? You're right. You're not Brienne of Tarth. You're like –

In the name of truth. In the name of the mother. Who's the guy who owns all the the the the whorehouses the late the guy what's his name oh a little finger little your little finger that's who you are right now that's all oh sorry now we're talking now we're talking my language we're gonna take a quick ad break when we get back we're gonna have wins and fails and predictions Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. interviewing Julia Angwin from the markup or not from the markup. She got fired as editor-in-chief before the thing even launched, and we did a really, really good podcast on what she thinks happened. Obviously, they think it didn't happen in an opposite way, and it's going to be really interesting because the funders seem to be taking her side or at least looking over it very carefully. But they had a breakup between the founders before the thing. This was supposed to be data journalism, But they had a breakup between the founders before the thing.

This was supposed to be data journalism. And Julie Anglin is a very well-known and well-respected using data to do journalism about the tech industry. And she's done some great pieces about how Facebook, for example, has racial – does targeting around racial lines and things like that. And so it was an interesting podcast this morning. I think it's a win and a fail that she did it and that they fired her. I think it'll be really interesting what happens. We had made her a win before, this markup thing that they were going to do this, this data journalism thing. So we'll see. It's hard to be a media company these days, Scott. I don't know. I think it's pretty hard to sell. This is compelling. I'm bored listening to it,

Kara. What are we talking about? Seriously, what are we talking about? Data journalism? What? You know what? You are literally – you just need like a shiny object. What do you like? Who do you like watching?

You know what I like? Vitamin water, Chipotle, Netflix, Cialis, and what else? And cannabis. Boom, the five food groups. I'm not even going to speak to you anymore. I think you're going to have to go. Like, anyway, that was a fail, I think. And my win, and then we'll go to yours, was George Conway again with deranged Donald.

You love him. You love George. I don't love him. I have complex feelings about him. But I do think he's very funny on Twitter, and I think he's using it beautifully. And so he started the hashtag deranged Donald, and I think he's very funny on Twitter and I think he's using it beautifully. And so he started the hashtag deranged Donald and I think it's just, it's catching on. I have to say, I hadn't even thought of it. It was demented Donald. There was, you know, dorky Donald,

whatever. Anyway, it's working perfectly, his Donald thing. And I think it's- You know what George Conway is? What? What is he? Tell me. George Conway is the Melania Trump of D.C. Both of them are fairly unimpressive people, but when they stand next to their spouse, they seem amazing. Oh, well, OK. He's pretty funny. He's pretty funny. No, he is funny, but there's a lot of funny people on Twitter. But we think he's fascinating because he stands next to his wife and we're like, wow, what a neat, neat, decent guy.

Yeah, that's true. But I don't know. It's more than decent. He's being really quite. Invite him to code. We should roll with that guy. I have texted him. I have DM'd him.

I'm trying to get him to do everything. George Conway, please, please. I would love to talk to you about your use of Twitter. And I'd be happy to talk about other books too. Anyway, so win for me. Anyway, I'll keep trying. Anyway, go ahead. Wins and loses. So I mentioned one of my wins, Bob Iger. I think he's showing a lot of courage and saying things that's on everyone's mind, but sort of a different one. I got off the couch this past weekend and I went and saw my first Broadway

show in a while. I took my boys to see King Kong and it was wonderful. And I looked around and the thing that really kind of struck me was you have an orchestra of live musicians, not something streamed off of Spotify. You have actors who are, and actresses and dancers who are part of a union, probably making not a great wage, but a living wage and ushers that are part of a union. And I thought, you know, this is just great entertainment. It's not about scale. It's not about a few people sequestering billions of dollars. It's about an outstanding medium that is supporting the middle class and creativity. And a bunch of kids who grew up growing up probably thought, I'm different, right? You just see a lot of people

on stage and you think, all right, that kid probably got a lot of shit when he or she was in junior high school and they found their way to New York and they're doing something inspiring. So I just felt great about getting off the couch, turning off Netflix and watching my kids just in awe of what these guys, these people were able to do on stage. And it was really, it was just sort of a nice joyous dad thing. So my win is Broadway and their approach to labor, their approach to wages. And anyway, a brief moment of inspiration outside of Netflix or HBO. All right. So Bob Iyer.

Bob Iyer owns everything now in entertainment, right? He's pretty – and now Marvel is opening with this movie. It will be an enormous moneymaker. He's sort of got everything. He's got every, and he bought Fox. He's got every piece of the, at least

the entertainment pie. Or he's got all the good ones. Yeah, no, he's not. You just literally rolled over my King Kong. You didn't even hear it. I heard your King Kong. You didn't even say,

I don't like those big Broadway things. I didn't want to insult your love of that. That's fine. I like the small shows which are now dying because those big giant shows

roll through Broadway. But it's okay. I like the small shows. You want to talk because those big giant shows roll through Broadway. But it's OK. I like the small shows. You want to talk about giant? They put this literally this gorilla on stage and you could hear this thing's breath. It was incredible. Anyway, yeah, little, little cute shows off, off, off, off Broadway. No, no.

I like the big ones. You and I are doing an off-Broadway show. We are? What's it going to be? Sing songs? Oh, my gosh. Guitar? She's a lesbian journalist. He's an angry

depressed professor with erectile dysfunction and their wacky neighbor is Evan Spiegel. Come on! You'd buy tickets for that. I don't think so. You'd buy tickets for that. Sad. Sad. That's a sad play. Alright. Fails. Sounds like sounds very bad.

That's like Showtime 4. Fail. Fail. What's your fail this week? There's Showtime 1, there's Showtime 2, and there's Showtime 4. You like sounds very bad. Sounds like. That's like Showtime 4. Fail, fail. What's your fail this week? They're Showtime 1, they're Showtime 2, and they're Showtime 4. Giant, overwhelming Broadway show. What's your fail? My fail, seriously, is, and this goes back to a prediction, is the board of Tesla. Yeah.

I mean, do you realize Elon Musk again committed. You won't get off that guy, will you? Okay, but hold on. He's committed market manipulation again. He announced a million autonomous cars within a year, which is his way of saying, my business makes no fucking sense, so I'm going to try and create a distraction and talk about something else, which, by the way, is not only an exaggeration, it's a lie. It is physically impossible for a million autonomous cars to be on the road within a year from Tesla.

And what this is is a terrible head fake trying to say, the road within a year from Tesla. And what this is, is a terrible head fake trying to say, don't look at my core business. I've got to invent something else. And his board is so clearly out to lunch that they don't realize the SEC is about to make this market manipulation exhibit B. This board is asleep at the switch and is going to cost shareholders huge. When it becomes becomes clear there's no truth, there's no veracity to this statement, and the SEC is about to go gangster on this guy. All right. This is a prediction and a fail at the same time. Yeah, but I still have other predictions. What are your predictions? All right. Keep going. No, I don't have any predictions. Go ahead. Go for it. I think

that's interesting. I mean, I'm not going to comment on that. Move along. Go ahead. So, look, just to revisit, I want to do a better job of holding ourselves accountable. I predicted that Twitter and Snap were going to decline dramatically, and I was wrong. They both reported fantastic earnings and numbers, and they seem to be figuring it out. You look at the numbers, and there's no denying that these firms are doing well. Yeah, except for that closed-door meeting with Donald Trump. It sounded hellish. We also predicted that Facebook – I don't know if you remember this.

I predicted when Facebook was at 159, it would be 200 by the end of the year. It went down to 139, and you gave me a little bit of shit for that, and now it's back towards 200. I think Facebook shows no signs of letting up. And then my big prediction is that by the end of this year, a Facebook executive is detained and arrested, and it's on foreign soil. I think the rest of the world- What part of the world? I think the rest of the world has not lost the script, and they realize that the government is supposed to be a counterv you know, a countervailing

force to private influence. And I think the rest of the world is, we're fed up. I think the rest of the world is literally throwing up in their mouth. And I think they're going to arrest somebody. Google exec. Wasn't there a Google, there was outstanding arrest warrants for some Google execs in Italy and Germany a couple of years ago. And it was quite dicey, I remember, talking to Google and others about it. What country? What country for the Facebook exec? Oh, I have no idea. Although I think the country that started the Elizabeth Warren geopolitically, and that is kind of the intellectual leader, is Britain. If I were Mark Zuckerberg, I would not be flying my Gulfstream 650 extended range plane over anywhere near British airspace because I think

they will escort it down and put cuffs on the guy. Oh, wow. That's interesting. They've wanted him there a lot and there's been a lot of controversy of him not appearing to their committees and everything there. We have the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world and kind of the object of our affection and kind of the Jesus Christ of innovation and the thing we point to and the CEO of that company can't appear in front of parliament of an ally for fear that he might be arrested. That's literally where we are. You think that's why? Or he just doesn't want to go? He will be arrested? I think the answer is yes. I think he'd rather do other things. And I think probably his legal counsel, who now is, again, the enhanced

interrogation lawyer, is probably saying, no, you probably should see Man U play in the Premier League some other time. We don't need to be in Britain for a while. Okay. That's interesting. We'll see. And then we saw Pinterest and Zoom go out and did okay. They did pretty good. They didn't go down. And we obviously are about to see Uber going out, which we'll talk about in the next few weeks.

I think it's the next two weeks it will be going out and it will be interesting if people buy their story of freight and eats and other things when they're facing these existential issues around drivers and pricing and things like that, which apparently there will be a thousand. How many cars? A million cars? Did he say that on the road? Well, Tesla said that there was going to be a million autonomous cars. But the Uber IPO, I call it – you know, it's so nice to see the lords in America taking revenge on the serfs finally. It's so nice to see the lords getting theirs finally, finally. So, yeah, the 22 or whatever it is, the 18,000 people at Uber, again, sequestering $120 billion in value from the 4.5 million drivers.

But anyway. I'm so glad. We'll see. We'll see. The lords versus ser million drivers. But anyway, we'll see. Well, we'll see. The Lords versus Serfs IPO. That's my new talk track. The Lords take revenge on the Serfs, finally. We're back to Game of Thrones somehow, but let's not stay there. I'm interviewing the mayor of San Francisco, the actual mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, on Monday there in San Francisco. So that should be an interesting question.

There's all kinds of stuff around techies and money and the idea of – there's a possibility introduced an IPO tax that people will pay 1.5 percent of their stock, something – I forget. I have to look at it more closely before I talk to her. It was introduced in the city council, the idea of paying more for these people who have all these things because of the impact on the city in terms – I think probably the answer to all of it is more affordable housing. But they – including homelessness, including everything. I do think that will be an interesting discussion with her. Where's Benioff on that?

I don't know. I got to call him. I got to call him. He's in Hawaii right now I think or somewhere, whatever. He's probablyioff on that? I don't know. I gotta call him. He's in Hawaii right now, I think, or somewhere. He's probably watching Game of Thrones, too. By the way, Elon Musk likes Game of Thrones just like you, just so you know. Oh, that hurts. That's a low blow.

That's a low blow. He loves it. He loves it. In any case, Scott, enjoy your time at Boynton Beach. I will be talking to you, I think, from San Francisco next week. From San Francisco. Yes, I will. I'll tell you how that went. Enjoyon Beach. I will be talking to you, I think, from San Francisco next week. From San Francisco. Yes, I will.

I'll tell you how that went. And enjoy yourself, and I will see you soon. Where are you going this week? I don't know. The only thing I know that's happening this week is Season 8, Episode 3. Other than that, I haven't thought of anything. Yeah. I also have a podcast.

I'm down in Florida. I'm down in Florida. Okay, good. We also have a podcast with Sam Harris. You've got to help me with that. Yeah, he's great. Good stuff, Sam Harris. Yeah, I know. We'll see how that goes. So I'd love in Florida. Okay, good. We also have a podcast with Sam Harris. You've got to help me with that. Yeah, he's great. Good stuff, Sam Harris. Yeah, I know.

We'll see how that goes. I'd love any suggestions. Anyway, Rebecca Sinanis produces his show. Nishat Kerwa is the executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Johnson. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week with more of a breakdown of all things tech and business. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, rate and review Pivot on Apple Podcasts. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere?

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