Pivot - The Mueller hearing, Facebook's fine, and revisiting The Case of Al Franken

Episode Date: July 26, 2019

This week, your hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway revisit the democratic presidential nominee race, and talk about the Mueller hearing. In wins and fails, they talk about revisiting controversies like Al Franken's. In predictions, they take a short trip down memory lane as they go over some of Scott's recent predictions-come-true. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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 the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Let's get straight to the biggest TV event of the summer. The season finale of Divorce? No.

No, nobody watches that. Who watches that? People who have been divorced. I've been divorced. I don't watch that show. It's pretty good. Try again. What happened yesterday in Washington, D.C.? Yeah, yeah. I know. But you know what freedom is? Bill Maher had a great term. He was talking about the happiest nations in the world. Seven of the 10 of them are socialists. And it's not only happiness isn't about what you have. It's also about your freedom from certain fears. And

in these socialist countries, they're free from the absence of knowing, okay, your wife has lung cancer, which is awful, but then you have freedom from this fear. Well, that also means I'm going to be bankrupt. But the reason I bring this up is that a definition of freedom, in my view, is a week goes by and you haven't thought about your leader. And I think about all these autocratic nations that are constantly in their population's face all the time. And I think about the leaders I admire, Merkel, Thatcher, Obama. And you know what they all had in common? They weren't in our fucking face every day. We didn't have to think. I think Margaret Thatcher, Obama. And you know what they all had in common? They weren't in our fucking face every day. We didn't have to think.

I think Margaret Thatcher was. Margaret Thatcher? Oh, no, not. There were months would go by that you wouldn't have to think about Margaret Thatcher. Whereas, what is it literally with Trump? It's like my eight-year-old when he does an exercise and he just like, okay, starts hitting his brother and, you know, eating, you know, eating detergent and like, look at me, look at me. Anyways. All right. Look at Robert Mueller. Guess what? It was about Trump. I'm sorry to tell you, but it was important testimony, especially because according to The New York Times, quote, Mr. has not fully grasped the elaborate and targeted nature of Russia's attacks on the 2016 elections

that were detailed in his report, nor has the government taken sufficient steps to address or prevent such an assault from occurring again. Amid all the politics, to me, that was the critical stuff. 100%. Do you know Gary Larson is a cartoonist? And he talks about what you say to dogs, ginger, go get the ball. Ginger hears ginger, blah, blah, blah, ginger, blah, blah, blah. And all I could hear was a bunch of blah, blah, except for two things. One, a guy who's been standing watch for our country for literally 50 years and who very smart people from both sides of the aisle have decided we should keep this guy standing watch. He has probably more respect, more credibility, more domain expertise than almost anyone trying to protect our country. And his opening statements were, look, folks, distinct of the politics that are about to unfold here, what the Russians have done here is one of the most concerning things I have seen, and all Americans should be very focused on it. And the second thing I heard was when Representative Buck asked him if the president could be prosecuted after he left office. And the answer was yes. Anyways, those are my two gingers.

Well, OK, let's talk about the Russians, because I think that's I just had a very long and interesting podcast with Larry Diamond, who's written a book called Ill Wins about the attacks by Russia and the incursions by the Chinese and American complacency. One of the things that really struck me about the coverage of the Mueller hearings was not was exactly that the last part of American complacency. One of the things that really struck me about the coverage of the Mueller hearings was not, was exactly that, the last part, American complacency. Everything was about whether he was addled. I think that was what many of the reporters were trying to get to. Is there something wrong with him from an age point of view? I think that's what they were driving at. And also Trump, you know, sort of doing a ridiculous juvenile victory dance over it. So it got pulled and mired into politics when the real point is the Russians are coming and they're here and they're still doing the same damage.

No matter who they're voting for, which is obviously Trump, which which which Mueller made very clear. We've got to do something about this. Yeah, I just I got so just personally. I found the term as I just found it so upsetting. I mean, Robert Mueller or Director Mueller, 73. I hope I'm. He's almost 75, actually. He's 75.

Okay. I hope I'm that. I hope I am that shaky when I am 75. I hope I am that. The fact that they would find purchase in saying anything disparaging about that guy. You know, here are some questions they should have asked him. Were you voted best athlete in your high school across three different sports? Were you, after your friend was killed in the Quang Tri province, did you decide to voluntarily enlist?

Were you awarded the Medal of Valor? I mean, this guy was decorated, shot in the thigh, returned, was awarded a commendation for bravery after rescuing a platoon member in a firefight that wounded half of his staff and then returned to the nation to continue to serve. You know, Devin Nunes, Sean Hannity, Chris Wallace, who find Purchase and being critical in any way of Robert Mueller. Well, you know what? Captain Mueller has pieces of better men in his crap. OK, exactly.

I don't know if he eats people, Scott, but you're right. But what was interesting is that it just got sucked. He got sucked right. I was thinking this morning, this man who deserves a lot of honor has just been pulled down in the same ways. And, you know, I was watching Twitter about him. And I was like, you know, they were hoping that he would be the savior. There was no there's no savior in this except for the warning message, which he has, which is that we're getting played by the Russians, essentially. We're getting played by them beautifully, and we're even pulling down people like this. So it was very – I felt sad and poor. It was hugely upsetting. I had trouble even watching the thing. Let's get to something happier. I listened to your three podcasts of the interviews of the presidential candidates. Yeah.

And first off, you're actually a fairly competent interviewer. I'll give you that. You're actually, you're pretty good. I mean, you still got some learning, but you're pretty good. So I'm going to just give you a viewpoint. So one, you know, I walk away feeling the same way about Senator Bennett. If we're going to kick this guy out, the only way you replace the president kind of mid-cycle or after one term is for something totally different. And in my view, Michael Benn represents that because he demonstrates brains, character, and empathy, of which seem to have been starched from the White House. But I just walk away the same. I walked away from your podcast with Andrew Yang liking him more.

This guy. I thought you would. He is a clear blue flame thinker. I mean, that guy has some interesting ideas. And unlike some of these other yahoos that have jumped into the race because they're billionaires and white, I think he's going to inject into the bloodstream some very interesting conversations around ideas that we weren't talking about before. I learned a lot. Universal basic income, $3 trillion, but a trillion and a half is already being paid.

He talks about the multiplier effect, the fact that it could free people up to start businesses, focus on their health, and that it would be a net economic benefit. It really got me thinking. So thank you for that. No problem. Shockingly, Mayor Pete was kind of my number two, my sort of mistress in the waiting, if you will. I came away, I liked Mayor Pete less. I thought he came across as a little bit awkward. I don't like this. I forget what it is. He's proposing something almost for reparations and act to provide reparations to the black community. I find that pandering and political

because the bottom line is the black community has been slow to embrace the gay community or the LGBT community. So I found that a bit pandering and political. And I also think I worry that anything like that only kind of fans the fuels of discrimination when we, affirmative act, I think affirmative action should be income-based, not race-based, which gets to the same thing, given that Latino and black households have an average wealth of 20,000 versus white households at 160. But anyways, I came away a little less impressed with Mayor Pete. Did you feel the same? I did. I did. I thought he wasn't on his best. I think he doesn't have as much a technology background. So it was harder because it was focused on technology. I think he was mixing

up some stuff, some concepts. But definitely, I think he felt younger. I don't have less experience. I really was struck by Andrew Yang. And the reason was I read his book and I thought these are some, now look, not everything he's done has been perfect. His, his fun that he's working on hasn't been as successful. You know, he's, he's, but he's trying out new ideas that are somewhat compelling. And so what I wanted to get from is a lot of the coverage of him has been like crazy Andrew with his like space mirrors, which by the way, is not such a bad idea. Like space mirrors is kind of a good idea. So they like try. I think the press, the political press at least tries to paint him as this sort of wacky Silicon Valley outsider. And so my first

line is, I've been here forever. I haven't seen you. So I don't know why they think that I was trying to get at the media covering him like he's a and he's got some percentages. He's got one or two percent. I forget. He's got like a lot more than others. And some of his ideas about UBI is the smartest arguments I've heard around UBI as yet. So I wanted to get those out and sort of the concepts around innovation, which I thought was important. And I like it. I like him personally. I'm not so thrilled with his Yang gang. I have to say they're a little bit abusive. Like, we didn't do a video of it. It's because it wasn't my event. I was there at a San Francisco place. And they have these conspiracy theories about why we videotape Mayor Pete over Andrew Yang. And it was just, like, redonk.

Like, they're a little bit, like, twitchy on Twitter. Oh, let's be honest. The Yang gang. I get they love him. But back the fuck off, dudes. Let's be honest. Mayor Pete has better hair. That just equals video. That just equals video.

By the way, Space Mirror. Well, I have more coming. And you're going to be in one. I can't wait. But wait, just a quick pause for a brief out on space mirrors. If you were going to try and meet just the incremental needs of energy consumption over the next 30 years with solar power, you would have to cover the surface of the earth with solar panels. And you can do it with like 1 40th in space with space mirrors because the ozone or the atmosphere doesn't screen out the power of the sun so i think space mirrors are actually pretty cool i'm sounding very elon musk right now it's a cool idea it's the kind of thinking we need there you go

it's a breakthrough thinking the breakthrough thinking all right another thing speaking of breakthrough thinking is the immigration battles continue but a pro-immigration group called new american economy says that immigrants and their kids founded 45 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies. Fortune 500 company employees founded by immigrants and their children employ 1.3 million people. And the average employee employ 11 percent more people than the average Fortune 500 company with a non-immigrant founder. These companies brought in $6.1 trillion in annual revenue last year. Anyone in Silicon Valley sees this. Like pretty much many, many, many of the companies are founded by immigrants. They have a heavy immigrant

population working for them. This demonization of immigrants just continues nonstop. Yeah, I get that. But like all of these problems, they're tough and they're nuanced. And while we need a lot more legal immigration, choking off all immigration cauterizes innovation and your ability to grow. But too much integration, I actually think, leads to the rise of nationalism. Because if you look at the kind of immigration we have now, illegal immigration, the primary benefits are the immigrants and also rich people whose services, the majority of which wealthy people consume, goes down. And the people who've lost the majority of which wealthy people consume, goes down. And the people who've lost the most from illegal immigration have been lower and middle class white Americans. And that leads to xenophobia and nationalism and to very bad things.

And I actually think that, unfortunately, and I've kind of come a little bit full circle, I think we liberals sometimes have a knee-jerk reaction that, OK, all immigration is good. These people are saints. They should be let in, and we start demonizing the DHS. And I don't think that's fair. I think it's a much more complicated argument. I think, unfortunately, in 2015, good intentions around people with children were immediately granted. Entrance into the United States has led to wrong incentives where people are grabbing their kids and heading for the border. has led to wrong incentives where people are grabbing their kids and heading for the border. And if the asylum process takes so long that if someone melts into the general population, they could be here for years. And that leads to a lot of illegal immigration and a lot of controversy. I think this is a difficult problem. And my sense is we need to stop as liberals

immediately demonizing the DHS and what's going on at the border, because I think it's a difficult issue. I think the DHS, the acting head there, I actually watched him on 60 Minutes. And I think, you know, my sense is he's a decent person doing his level best. Well, I think it's hard to, though. I mean, look, first of all, Trump got to Scott. That's obvious. But I think it's because of his language. He's so hateful.

His boss got to me. You've been replaced. Don't kid yourself, Cara. I am all salsa, no chip. Sorry, back to the border. You're a Russian plant or a Chinese plant or a GOP plant. I don't know. But one of the problems is that it's gotten so ugly from the top of our country. That's why. You know what I mean? Of course, we should be able to have, you know, intelligent discussions about how to do immigration properly. But it's made impossible by this lunatic doing the send her back things at those rallies. And, you know,

I had a really interesting discussion on this week with Steve Huffman from Reddit, who addressed that issue quite a bit in terms of the Donald on the site. And so he's put them under quarantine. Many people think they should get rid of the Donald, which is devoted to all things Trump, because of their violent tendencies in the comments, and they're not policing it. And I said, well, what's going to go after quarantine? He said, well, if they stay the digital equivalent

of what happened at that rallies, I think the outlook isn't very good for the Donald on Reddit, which was really quite something responsible for a tech person to say. It was really, I was surprised by it and also encouraged that he had a point of view and a decision-making apparatus in place. Do you know how Reddit's doing? I'm kind of fascinated. Reddit's an example of something. I love Reddit. I just never would have in a million years. Who thought of Reddit? It just seems to me so interesting. He did. This guy. I know they did. By the way, I was at Canon. I love the fact that the founder of Reddit got held out of this party that I got in.

I'm like, wow, tech billionaires have no pull here. But the big dog does. They're letting him in with his ball. Anyways. What was it like? It was that guy O'Hanion, the one that's married to the world's greatest tennis player in history, Serena Williams. He's married to her. Yeah, yes.

That's it. Well, Alexis. Alexis couldn't get in? He couldn't get in. He was out there. I'm like, bro, can I help out? Can I help you? Do you need the pull and the credit, the prof? Is that what you need? Oh, my God. This was Steve Huffman, who's the other co-founder. Alexis Ohanian is one of them.

But, you know, it's the idea. I think one of the things that I really was encouraged by was the idea not just that there is accountability for these sites and that the way to scale it is to let people run their communities properly and then monitor the communities because that could users scale users essentially and so if you have one main person like mark zuckerberg doing it it really falls apart really quickly you have a large community of people his feeling was people in smaller groups tend to the good and try to create good communities anyway it was a great discussion it a surprise. It's the wisdom of crowds that isn't fueled by an algorithm that's trying to figure out more engagement. And that is, I've always thought that social media is nicotine, which is bad for you, but not terrible. It's addictive, but it's addictive like nicotine. But the delivery system, tobacco is what gives you cancer. And I've always thought social media is nicotine

in and among itself. It's addictive, but not that bad for you. What the tobacco or the shit that gives you cancer is advertising specifically the algorithms to encourage more engagement because unfortunately, tribal rage encourages more engagement. But if you look at, you know, it's a great example of what you're talking about in terms of the wisdom of crowds and self-policing of communities where there isn't an underlying rage machine through these algorithms to fuel more Chobani and Nissan ads is Wikipedia. But the community actually does a pretty good job of pursuing the truth and also recognizing when stuff is starting to breach into propaganda versus truth. So, unfortunately, I think advertising ruins everything. Advertising, that's your business, though, isn't it? And now a word from ZipRecruiter. I'm going to do that in a second.

But this is not the same. I'm not weaponizing by reading it. Any other news you think this week? So I have I have a question for you. And I wish I'd shown more leadership around this at the time because I thought about it and was asked about it. And like everyone else, I felt like I had to have a gag reflex and start vomiting liberal shit. But do you think Senator Al Franken should have resigned? Oh, that's interesting. You're talking about this big story in the in the New Yorker this week by Jane Mayer about looking back at the people. Yes. I thought it was a really gripping read in terms of how bad a crowd can go, a mob really can go against someone. And by mob, I mean politicians in Washington. I don't mean online because I think

that was the very least of it. It was a really interesting look at the fact that the person who accused him is a very sketchy personality. And unfortunately, he hit at the exact wrong time at this sort of me too moment. You know, a lot of people got pulled into that. I think he probably should not have resigned. I think it should have gone through the process. You know, the Senate, whatever the process is for dealing with these kind of violations. And that would have been the best way. And he probably would have stayed in office would be my guess.

You know, a little maybe perhaps removed from the Judiciary Committee or something like that, but not the full resignation. And I'm surprised he did so and why he did so. Obviously, he regretted it in this piece. But I think seven of the 10 people who called for his resignation said they were wrong, which was interesting. Well, and you know who kind of led the crusade, and now she's backtracking from that. Gillibrand. That's right. So she could launch her seven-minute run for president, which she's about six minutes and 58 seconds into.

By the way, talk about someone who brightens up a room by leaving it. Senator Gillibrand is the least compelling senator in the United States Senate. Okay, really? Maybe with the exception. She's probably the least compelling person on the debate stage with the exception of de Blasio. You should run for president,

said no one ever to the mayor here. Literally. Literally, I'm trying to find any individual in the city he oversees who suggested he should run for president. You do not like your mayor of New York. There's going to be debates this week. Are you going to watch them?

Oh, I'm hosting a debate party. Are you having a debate party? Could that sound any lamer? I'm bored just describing it. Professor Galloway's hosting a debate party. Jesus Christ. That's pretty hard to sell. That is compelling.

Why? When are these debates? Are they tomorrow? I don't know when they are. I think they're next week. Wait, when is it? I don't know when it is. Like soon.

Yeah. Okay. The debates are soon. Whenever they're happening, I'll be somewhere else. You know, I'm going up to Seattle this afternoon. I'm going to visit Microsoft. For what? What shall I tell the people of Microsoft?

For what? What do you have softie for? The most valuable company in the world. I'm going to go visit the CEO, et cetera. Sucha? You know. Just people. So, yeah.

People who run it. Oh, listen to you. Listen to you. Listen to the coy one. I get invited to important places when I'm not chit-chatting with you important people want to talk to me speaking of which megan rapinoe will be my 400th episode of recode decode coming up monday i know everyone's dying she's fantastic she's friggin fantastic i don't know there's what's the word beyond fantastic she's smart she's engaged she's funny she's disarming as she said she is, and she's correct.

She could do whatever she wants, obviously. Obviously, she's been super focused on kicking balls into nets, but a real leader, I think. Did I say I ran into her? I ran into her at the Crosby Hotel. You did. And I could not. Where were you? I was at the Crosby Hotel. It's kind of my cheers. It's where I take everyone for coffee. And there's this incredibly in-shape woman with pink hair.

And I'm like, my gosh, who is that? And the guy's like, that's that famous soccer star. I'm like, that's Megan Rapinoe. Why didn't you say hello? Because I was intimidated. There's no way I'm going up to her. What was I going to go up to? Hey, I know Kara Swisher.

Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. Actually, when she showed up, she said she was super nervous to be interviewed by me. She was scared. Yeah, I bet. I bet. She said it. Oh, my gosh. She said it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, she's an inspiration. She's incredibly impressive.

What do you think she's going to do next? Did you ask her that? Or do we have to listen? Yes, I did. It's all in the podcast. And she doesn't want to go into politics right now. I think that she could easily pivot into politics. She could easily pivot into politics. But she's writing a book. It just was announced. Anne Ganoff from Penguin is another well-known gay woman in publishing, is going to publish this book of hers, which is going to be about a lot of things. But I think she'll probably do The Circuit. We'll see where she goes from there. She has a clothing business called Re-Ink, which is sort of gender-neutral clothing.

Genutral? Genutral? Genutral? It's the stuff you wear, essentially. It's your clothes. No, no. My style can be best summarized as I surrender. Okay.

But in any case, she's great. Or aging skateboarder. I'm going for the aging skateboarder look. I think she's in that zone. And she can mix and match and stuff like that. Anyway, it's an interesting thing. She's going to do whatever she wants. She's fantastic.

Anyway, we're going to take a quick break now so we can earn some money, not just Megan Rapinoe can earn some money. But listen to that episode, Scott. You'll really like it a lot. 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. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made

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That's anthropic.com slash Claude. All right, Scott. Yeah, yeah. Wins and fails. Wins and fails. I suspect I know what yours will be to this week. Tell me. I'm curious.

I don't think you're going to guess either of them, or maybe you will. Do you want a fail or a win? I would like a fail to start with. So my fail is more information regarding the actual settlement behind the $5 billion FTC fine against Facebook. Granted, they thought, you know, you can see the narrative there. This is the biggest fine ever, beating their chest. But the reality is they've become a co-conspirator in what is supposed to be a countervailing force and private power. And one of the elements of the settlement that no one seems to be reporting on is that part of the agreement is the FTC has agreed to indemnify Facebook against all activities previous to June 19th. So look at it this way. Imagine the FTC was an insurance company and Facebook was

an individual worth $573 billion. And the insurance company showed up to the individual and said, you know what? I can issue you an umbrella insurance policy. And there are other umbrella insurance policies. Rich people buy them. Anything bad happens to me, someone slips and falls, I get prosecuted for something and you cover all the costs just so I can sleep better at night because I'm rich and who knows what can happen. And people come after, quite frankly, are rich people. So any person worth $573 billion that an insurance agency called the FTC would give them for $5 billion and 1% of their net worth would hit that bid. So the FTC has become an insurance policy or an insurance provider offering their customer, Facebook, a great deal. This was high fives.

So what would that do? What would it do? Indemnify them for what? It means that if the FTC, if all of a sudden we find out that Cambridge Analytica was a walk in the park and that Facebook was doing much worse things, the FTC can't go after Facebook. They indemnify them. They've basically been given immunity almost from anything that they've done up until now.

Once again. It really is disheartening. And anyway, so my lose, my lose again is this element, the indemnification of Facebook from previous acts of negligence or illegal behavior issued by the FTC. The headline that kind of summarizes all of this is Facebook fined $5 billion but does not have to admit to any wrongdoing. I mean, that kind of— Right. And doesn't really have to do anything that gets in the way of their ability to generate revenue. That's right.

Nothing that much. Nothing at all. And back to our prediction, that stock's going up. It's going to $250. $250. All right. What do you think they make of the FTC then releasing Facebook doing this, which I think was just scammy, that the FTC is going to investigate them for antitrust? I don't think they really are.

But the DOJ did say that. Is that a win then with Makan Delrahim, who is the head of the antitrust division of the Justice Department? Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to customer demands. The department's antitrust review will explore these important issues. And without naming names, they weren't talking about Apple. I think it was Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Yeah. Look, the beginning of the end of these companies, as we know them, is happening. The beginning of the breakup has commenced. It may take years, but it has commenced. And this goes, I'm going to skip forward to a prediction and I'll come back and ask you your wins and fails. But my prediction is that these companies are much more

nimble and quite frankly, very intelligent. And I think we're going to see the breakup start prophylactically. And one of these companies, Amazon, Facebook, or Google, most likely Amazon with AWS is going to spin one of their divisions prophylactically by the end of the year as a means of staving off. So spin it, just do it. Which one? Well, the most obvious one, we've talked about this, is AWS AWS, which on the spin would be one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world. But it could be, who knows? It could be Facebook and WhatsApp. It could be YouTube being spun. Who knows? But we're going to see a spin. YouTube.

We're going to see a spin. I'm going to go for YouTube because I've interviewed the Amazon CEO of AWS. He says no. And he keeps saying no, and he's not much of a liar. It's not up to him. He's very strongly saying no. There's only one person that gets to decide that. Oh, and he's not much of a liar. It's not up to him. He keeps very strongly saying no. There's only one person that gets to decide that. Oh, and by the way.

I know that. By the way, I love this. Did you hear this? Did you see this? That Amazon, despite the fact they were chased out of New York, is investigating being the largest customer of WeWork in New York. They're talking about leasing from WeWork a 5,000 or 10,000 strong person office here in New York. They're talking about leasing from WeWork a five or 10,000 strong person office here in New York. So again, worst poker players in the world, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, who didn't need to offer Jeff Bezos anything to come to New

York. He's come to New York. He's purchased a $60 million apartment and they are hiring like crazy here with zero subsidies. So the way I see it is New York taxpayers, because of the leadership of city councilman Michael Giannaro, this councilman who just said, no, this is bad. Instead of New York's taxpayers having to subsidize Jeff Bezos' move to New York, it's going to be SoftBank subsidizing it through WeWork, which is a train wreck. We wreck. By the way, my brain is literally, I can't stop it right now. What did you think? Adam Neumann has sold $700 million in stock. I don't think a lot of it.

Oh my gosh. I've asked many people about this. That's the mother of all sell signals. Seriously. No, you buy my stock, but I'm going to sell $700 million worth. That's a lot. I think I interviewed two VCs this week

and both of them were like, that's crazy. They said it in a nicer way, but they were like, that seems problematic. Yeah. I thought he was Argentinian because he's so handsome. He's actually Israeli. I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah. So what is the sign that that brings $750 million? Because they were talking about like giving a couple million dollars to people to buy homes and stuff like that. This is a lot. Well, this is, quote unquote, our learning moment. So secondary sales. And a lot has changed. Let's go big picture here. Let's go big picture. Okay. Like on heroin. So in the 90s, entrepreneurs were seen as crazy and we were unnecessarily evil and we got kicked out until Bill Gates built a company to a hundred billion. And Steve Jobs, after being kicked out

for quote unquote, the gray hairs, came back and then set a company on a chart to become the most valuable company in the world. All of a sudden, entrepreneurs become key DNA. And now we have too much credit. And part of VCs differentiating themselves or their term sheets when they try and finance a small company is they say, you can take some money off the table. I did a secondary sale at L2. When we raised money, we didn't need that much. The VCs wanted to put more capital to work. But this is what we did. It wasn't so much money that we could say to somebody, well, I'm clearly not interested in this company, but it was enough money to diversify, take some chips off the table. And what the CEO of L2, that's right, the big dog,

said to all his employees- What did you take out? To all his employees is we can all sell exactly 17% of our vested shares. And my question to all his employees, is we can all sell exactly 17% of our vested shares. And my question to all WeWork employees is the following with equity. Did Adam Neumann offer you the same opportunity to sell the exact same proportion of your shares that he sold? Because there is some validity to the notion that the innovation economy is a conspiracy between the investors and the CEOs. So WeWork employees, were you able to sell shares and diversify and buy real estate as your CEO, Adam Neumann, who tells you to show up every morning

and work your ass off because he believes in a great future of a company where 700 million times he has decided to get the fuck out of Dodge and sell? Yeah, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of cabbage. It shouldn't even be.

They shouldn't have those numbers. It's a crazy amount of sale. It just, it calls attention to itself. It makes people scrutinize the business plan of which you have scrutinized many times. It's just, it gives tech a bad name. And they did it before Groupon. Remember the Groupon sale? There was one.

You know how that ended. Yeah. Not well. Not well. Not well. So your ones did fail? How much did you take out? Is that for that nice apartment that you have?

Did you take out a lot of money? For, you mean when I took out out of L2? What do you mean? Yeah. I did a secondary sale and then we sold the company. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Okay. I think it's fine to do that on some level, but in the massive amounts. I would say I was really enjoyed, as I said, this interview with Steve Huffman, and I really enjoyed him talking about the thing I talked about. But he also, when I interviewed him, we're going to play a little clip. I asked him about what he thought about the inquiry, the DOJ inquiry, and what he'd like to see in the way of tech regulation.

And here is what he said. Would I love to see the government like F, our largest competitors? Yes, yes. Yeah. That'd be great. That'd be amazing. Okay, that's the best answer I've gotten for a long time. Look, there's – it's a conversation.

They're going to F your largest competitors, but go ahead. And honestly, I hope they do it for the right reasons. Okay, I thought that was really smart. I think the right reasons were you don't do it because it's a partisan thing and that you do it carefully and thought out, not just because you're Ted Cruz and you think there's some conspiracy against conservative voices. But they do it in a smart way in order to promote innovation and do the proper kinds of regulation. Because companies like Steve was making the really good point. I think he was super smart about it, that, you know, here's Facebook not able to handle its content problems.

And they're quantumly smaller and they're starting to handle them or trying to get a handle on them. problems and they're quantumly smaller and they're starting to handle them or trying to get a handle on them so i think he was trying to go against the argument that these too big to fail idea which is i think what big companies are promoting is just so much bullshit and so i really enjoyed that i thought that was a real win to think about it that way and i hope people in in washington understand how to do it correctly i'm not sure they can do it in this mental state you know i mean that they're in in washington with the partisanship. That's a win. OK, a fail this week.

There's so many things, just these hearings. I just think it didn't get through what needed to get through, which are the critical things. And we are going to continue to it just feels like this one upmanship with these idiot tweets back and forth. And it gives people a sense that, you know, you're sort of in an endless game of like Star Wars, an endless movie of loop Star Wars, and Darth Vader keeps winning. And so I think it takes the energy out of people

for fresh new ideas. So I think that's the problem. I feel some days, you know, like you said, waking up, I don't want to hear about Dear Leader anymore. I want to just do something good. Yeah, so my win is Jane Meyer, this piece in the New Yorker. And I think it hopefully has catalyzed the important conversation we need to

have around calibration around this issue. I was on Yahoo Finance last week and they had pictures and it said scandal. And they put up pictures of all these CEOs who had been forced to resign. And one of them had been guilty of a consensual relationship with a woman who worked at a vendor, which was inappropriate. He didn't disclose it. Conflict of interest, he was fired. And another CEO on the screen was inviting women into his office and then attacking them. And there's a difference. There's a difference. And I feel as if we're finally starting. And also, it's really, Democrats, we never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Who do you think the most effective voice against Donald Trump is right now in the Democratic Party? Oh, I don't know. There's different ones. Different people are different times. Who's the most effective? Nobody. Nobody. I think Al Franken would be the most effective voice against Donald Trump right now. And what

have we done? We had a guy who, I don't know what he did, if he played grab ass, if he didn't, if he should be stripped of his committee or not. Clearly, there was some inappropriate behavior. But the most effective voice against a guy who's been accused 21 separate times, 21 separate times, we have taken him out of circulation. And it's just, what on earth are we Democrats thinking, removing Al Franken? What on earth were we thinking? I just, it's a talk about idiocy. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot and then sticking your gun in the mouth. Anyways, my win is Jane Mayer and for her article in The New Yorker, I thought it was a really thoughtful piece. I was talking to the editor of Recode this week. Going back to stories is always like, did it really happen that way?

And really doing a smart later take is something journalists don't do enough. But I thought that was perfect. And Jane has done a lot of really amazing reporting on Me Too also, right? By the way, FYI. And so has The New Yorker around the very serious behaviors by Harvey Weinstein and everybody else. You know, Ronan Farrow did a whole bunch of that. So anyway, so I like, I agree with you. That was a great piece.

Now, Prediction Scott, you sort of made one, but you were right twice. You were right twice. Why don't you tell us how right you were? Go on. I'm sorry, say more. First of all. Say more. Go ahead.

First of all, Lion King made almost $600 million worldwide so far, even though looks pretty creepy. Disney is review proof, as you said so. That is correct. That was an easy one. The other one was the gangster prediction. Let's pause for a moment. What did the big dog—the big dog is more thoughtful.

The big dog just doesn't jump on the counter and eat that cupcake. He thinks. You're geopolitical, Scott. That's right. You're geopolitical. Can we roll tape? Let's go. It's difficult to— it could be anything.

It could be Russia deciding to like, quote, unquote, do a soft invasion of one of their neighbors. It could be another missile being launched by North Korea, another test. It could be the Iranians spinning up their uranium again. I mean, all sorts of stuff. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be Canada. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be Canada. Justin Trudeau is not doing so well. He might need something.

Yeah, that guy. I don't know. That guy is great. Yeah. Anyway, he might need to do something. Justin Trudeau's not doing so well. He might need something. Yeah, that guy's great. Yeah. Anyway, he might need to do something. Yeah. Might need to make some flex. Take over Minnesota. That's it.

Minneapolis is ours. Tomorrow belongs to me. Oh, good God. That's right. So North Korea. How did you manage to throw a Nazi Justin Trudeau in Minnesota in one statement? The Canadians are coming. Shawn Mendes is coming to the Barclays Center, and he has me and my eight-year-old under a trance.

That's a soft invasion. That's Putin coming to the Ukraine. Shawn Mendes on tour. All right, there's no Canadian troops in Minnesota right now that we know of. But, you know, bingo on this. Bingo. One of the predictions we said was that North Korea could launch missiles. Two missiles launched.

It's only going to get worse. And who was in Korea, South Korea at the time? I don't know. National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has been saying don't cooperate with these people. Talk about waving the middle finger in the face of the U.S. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So anyways, people sense weakness and more to come. But my prediction was for this week was by the end of 2019, we're going to see a spin, a large spin of a company that will be one of the 20, if not one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world. You're not going to be more specific because that's like a real wide one. That's like saying someday you probably will have a heart attack, something like that.

Give me a larger, give me a specific one. I say it would be YouTube. What do you say? That hurts my feelings. That hurts my feelings. I want a name. I say it would be YouTube. What do you say? That hurts my feelings. That hurts my feelings. I want a name. AWS. I want a name.

AWS. Regardless of what your pal says. By the way, he has no input. Is that my pal? Andy Jassy. What? Regardless of what Andy Jassy says, I think AWS is going to be spun. All right.

I'm going to go with YouTube. All right? So let's see what happens. Nice. There'll probably be something over at Facebook. I like it. We'll see. No, he's integrating the companies together so you can't pull them apart. He's like stitching them together. At Facebook? Yeah,

they're encrypting it. And I think he's genuinely a sociopath and he thinks he's immune from any sort of scrutiny. I don't think he's worried at all. Well, he did give a speech saying, now we are accountable. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That showed him seven weeks of cash flow. Oh, my gosh. He must be reeling. Do you realize the stock went up $8 billion in value the day that fine was announced? The empire strikes back. I've had it. That's where we are.

That's it. I'm using Instagram for four hours, not five today. I've had it. I've had it. I put a picture. I put a Megan Rapinoe picture on Instagram. I haven't been on there for six, eight months, and I did. Really? I just had to. You had to. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a Megan Rapinoe picture on Instagram. I haven't been on there for six, eight months. And I did. Really?

I just had to. You had to. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm actually going to listen to that podcast. I'm going to listen. It's Monday. You'll love it.

She's a lot of fun. She's very fun. She tried really hard not to curse in front of, there's a lot of children there. It was an event and there was a lot of people brought their kids and he tried, me too, tried mightily not to curse it. And we both failed at that. But otherwise, yeah. Good.

Lesbians are a pretty tough crew. We're doing rather well. Anyway, we've got to go. I was sent a Jeff Bezos doll this week. I don't know why, but it arrived at my house along with a small robot. So I'm going to go play with that right now. Anyway, I'm only using that because- I got the same one.

Someone sent me the same one. It's the one that looks really buff, and he's like in a down vest. And he has a robot dog. I think it's really buff and he's like in a down vest. And he has a robot dog. I think it's probably a listening device that is now in our home. That's what I think is happening. Jeff Bezos is listening via his voodoo doll device. Yeah, I don't know. That guy's jacked.

That guy's definitely like, oh, another billion, another cycle of Android or whatever the athletes say. Anyways, Cara, where are you going to be this week? Anyway, I want you to listen to Jason Del Rey's new Amazon podcast called Land of the Giants. Oh, he's the guy who wrote the four, right?

Oh no, that was me. Thanks for asking me to host that fucking podcast. Yeah, Jason, Jason Del, who gives a shit?

Which one do you want? You can have Facebook. We'll figure it out. What does he have other than credibility, looks, and journalistic integrity? Write a book.

Write a book and then call me about Big Tech. You can host one if you want. It's a very hard job. You'd have to work and stuff like that. I know. And we're grabbing dinner. And we're going to interview a candidate. Tease, tease, tease. He has lots of great interviews. He interviewed Mary Meeker. He interviewed lots of people. It's going to be great. He did interviews with people. You've heard of those. And I'm going to bring, I promise you, I'm going to bring you into a presidential thing. So I'm working on them. I

think we've got a lot of them. So I'm going to send you a text on the choices that you have working on them. I think we've got a lot of them. So I'm going to send you a text on the choices that you have, and you have to show up and do the interview with me. That could be literally one of the weakest flexes in the world. I could end up in a room with, like, self-help guru Tulsi Gabbard, whatever the hell her name is. She could talk to me. She could talk to me about my anger. I'm sitting there like, hold me, Tulsi. Well, you have selected Biden, if we get him.

It's not out of the question. Who else? Uncle Joe. I'm definitely going to turn around and kiss him on the back of his head and say, you should take this gesture within the intention it was given, Joe. Don't you touch. You are not to touch any Democratic presidential candidate with your body in any way. Okay. That's going to be the rule of interviews. I am too insecure for affection. You will not touch them. You will not hug them. You could admire their hair if you'd like, but only verbally. Okay? We have rules at Vox Media.

And that is one of them. I'm taking affection back here. Seriously. I think there's something around males taking affection back that in our society, males who are affectionate, we're seen as one either using it as a vehicle to get sex or that it expresses some sort of homosexual tendencies, which isn't a bad thing. But you know what? I think men should take affection back. I think affection is a wonderful thing. Take it back? We're not allowed to be affectionate anymore. We are not allowed to be affectionate. Oh, stop. The men are victims. I listen. I was just with my 14-year-old son. It's the same thing. Men are victims. I got it. I got the news. Not so. Take it back. Not happening. Let's take it back. I can't wait to see you and hug you. I cannot wait to see you and hug you, Kara.

And kiss the back of that beautiful black hair. Don't you touch my hair. Oh my God, that Megan Rapinoe hair. You have definitely got to dye it pink. I'm going to have, you know, if you did that to her, you know what would happen to you. You'd get a kick, a very strong kick. I would be way too intimidated. You should definitely dye your hair pink. I'm not dyeing it. That would be so awesome. No. No? Why You should definitely dye your hair pink. I'm not dyeing my hair pink. That would be so awesome. No.

No? Why don't you dye your hair pink? Oh, go on. On that note, I'm going to go. Today's show was produced by Camila Salazar and Eric Johnson. Nishat Kerwa is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Anderson, Rebecca Castro, and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

If you like this week's episode, leave us a review. If you have any suggestions for what you want to hear us talk about on the future show, send us an email, pivot at voxmedia.com. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. 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 marketers