Pivot - The SEC goes after Elon Musk's tweets, Fauci's emails, and should Roku acquire more content?

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about the SEC saying that several of Elon Musk's tweets were not vetted before they were posted and violate a previous settlement with regulators. Then they discuss the trove of Dr. Fauci emails released from a FOIA request. In listener mail, Kara and Scott answer a question about Roku's acquisition of Quibi content and what it means for the company. 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 kara swisher Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And Kara, I'm a star. Why? What? Why? Well, you know how I've described my adventures in Hollywood that I go to L.A. Yeah. I got in an Outburger. I go get the Cobb salad or pancakes at the girl's hotel. I meet with fairly famous actors and well-regarded producers.

They look me in the eye. They stop me mid-conversation when I'm on my rant. And they go, I just want to tell you you're a genius and we have to work together. And then I leave and I call my agent and I say that was the best meeting ever. And my agent calls me and goes, oh, they can't wait to work with you. And nothing. And like wash, rinse, repeat every three months for the last five years. I have just scored my first role.

What? I am going to play the role of Kingston, the voice in the animated series of The Tooth Fairy Tale. What? It is an animated series about the tooth fairy. I'm serious. This is 100% serious. This is my future. I have arrived.

Why are you doing this? Why? Why? Because of you. Because Kara Swisher, after working my ass off for 40 years, discovered me. Yeah. And anyways, he has decided, whoever's producing this show, I don't know if it's Netflix or Hulu or Joey Bag of Donuts or what streaming video platform. This isn't the Obama animated series because that would be cool. You know, I extend myself.

You can't let me have my own victory all right go ahead sorry I like that oh I'm on an animated series oh is it the Obama anime literally that that's what you're about that's what you're about anyways is there even Meghan Markle involved anyways no it's but the other voices are John Lovitz and Fran Drescher and the producers the producers have decided I have an authoritative voice so I'm gonna be oh my god this could be another career it's like a hand model like right it could be right you know what you know you know the woman who is in Marvel's Mrs. Maisel who plays the lesbian lady with the hat and stuff she's like a lesbian lady with the hat you know her her agent

she plays I think Marge, yeah. She plays someone. And she's got a billion dollars. Someone was like, she's a billionaire. No, Marge is the woman from Rhoda. She's a very talented woman. Yeah, that's right. Rhoda. Anyway, all of them.

This woman also has a zillion. Hank Azaria. He's made $300 billion. A gaudillion dollars. This could be big for you. This could be big. That's why I brought it up. Oh, wow.

An animated series. You never know. You never know where life is going to take you. This could be big. That's why I brought it up. Oh, wow. An animated series. Anyways, you never know. You never know where life is going to take you. You have your plan. I thought I would play the lead as this hero professor that manages to break up big tech. You could make some dough. In a Netflix drama. Instead, I'm Kingston, the narrator of A Tooth Fairy Tale. Oh, that's really nice.

I'm really excited. This is a big moment for you. It is nice. This is exciting. You could actually do well in this. I can see that. Someone who's not doing as well as Donald Trump's blog is gone from the desk of Donald Jacob Trump.

I think it was like two Scaramoochies or three, maybe? 2.4 Scaramoochies. What do you think of that? I just, it was ridiculous. I think he was just embarrassed because it was embarrassing. Like it started off embarrassing and then he realized it was embarrassing and then they didn't have any numbers. And he didn't realize people can pay attention to numbers on the internets. I think probably puts Brad Parscale into a bit of hot water.

And they're supposedly coming out with a social media network, which is going to be a bust. Because if he couldn't do a blog right, he can't do that right kind of thing. But you never know. The thing that struck me when I heard about it was that it for me just highlighted one platform, specifically Twitter and Facebook have just levied so much damage on our nation. Yeah. And that is, if you think about the natural oxygen that this individual's ideas get on their own. I mean, the presidency, the platform of the presidency, the bully is obviously very powerful.

These platforms on their own innovation have created tremendous platforms with a lot of people. But what they also do, which he was unable to do without them, is their algorithms of amplification find that type of toxic, incendiary, gaslighting content, and they promote it. And when you think about what has happened here and the fact that these ideas,

these poorly thought out, low IQ, bigoted, weird ideas that he is constantly throwing into the universe. Throwing out. On their own merit. We decide they have absolutely no merit. But when the algorithms from Facebook and Twitter get a hold of them, they decide they have merit. Yeah. And we are so much better off.

We're not suppressing his speech. There's no First Amendment issue here, which these platforms consistently wrap themselves in. This, to me, highlights that these organizations trade in divisive content. Agreed. And people just didn't want to read him like that. Like, his followers don't operate like that. They don't, they operate on- And it didn't show up in our feeds any longer. It wasn't triggering. It wasn't sort of triggering. I hate to use that term, but I think one of the things that happens is it gets in those environments using those tools, and they are so much more incendiary. Obviously, he couldn't get anybody going with this stuff. And so it'll be interesting.

He's going to start on his rallies again, which I think are going to sputter out. I think people are tired of the show, essentially. There's nothing new in the show. And so I think that without Twitter, he has much less power. And it'll be interesting because yesterday, speaking of Twitter, had a huge freakout that Facebook might have let him back on, which they did not do. But Twitter, of course, didn't care to actually check.

And Facebook was like, we didn't let him back on. But what it is, is his pages are up there. He's not allowed to post, and they've suspended his ability to post. But people can comment on it that's there. Like, it just sits there like a sort of a graveyard and it's like people leaving flowers. And they do that.

And so everyone had a big freak out. But it'll be interesting because Facebook very soon will have to decide what to do about him on their platform. I don't think it's as powerful a platform as Twitter by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still a powerful one. It'll be interesting to see. But I'm excited to see a social media network.

Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. I told you my name for it, right? I have so many names for it. Well, either Mindspace or Titter. I think that was the two names. Huh. Mindspace?

Get it? Mindspace, yeah, sort of. It's a sophisticated joke. Yeah, well, then it's over my head. It's a sophisticated joke. Yeah. Well, then it's over my head. It involves Germans and possibly World War II Germans. Who do you think I am? Someone who does voiceovers for the Obama animated series? There's a famous book.

I can't believe I'm still like. German road. I still believe you say. I just was noticing yesterday the Obamas are doing animated series. And they're just like, what are they doing? She has a great voice. I just don't understand that whole media situation I guess they've decided

they're going to like you know every president goes through that what do I do now whatever decade they all go through it I don't know

they all go through it Obama for the first 24 months was you know on different various yachts of billionaire democrats playing basketball and now I think he's trying to figure out

like hang on alright what am I going to do I don't know I don't like anything he's done, what am I going to do? I don't know. I don't like anything he's done so far. I don't like their media. I don't like their little media thing at all. I don't know. We'll see.

Well, you know what it is? I think he's – I actually think Obama – I think he has such a powerful voice and he's such a young man. Yeah. And I think his wife is such a fantastic, I don't know, spokesperson for various things that I think people would like to see them a little bit more in the game. Yeah. As opposed to just doing production deals. And they have the right to do whatever they want. Yeah. It just seems a little cheap. Seems a little cheap what they're doing. I got to say. Best ex-president ever, Jimmy Carter. Yeah, you know, exactly. Like, have a little, I don't know. I just don't, you know, look, I don't know. I guess George Bush

is sort of painting, I guess, and he's sort of keeping quiet. Very likable guy. Although more likable now, I guess. In any case, it's a really interesting time. So I'm going to go right to the big story because I think we need to discuss this. Because speaking of the Twitter, the Securities and Exchange Commission is saying that Tesla has failed to oversee CEO Elon Musk's tweets. Really? They're concerned.

Who predicted that? They're concerned. They're really concerned at this point. The regulator said that Elon Musk's use of Twitter twice violated the court-ordered policy that his tweets would be pre-approved. Twice. I'm sure it's like 400 times by in-house. I don't know if they're paying attention. As a reminder, in 2018, the settlement Tesla and the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed that Mr. Musk had committed fraud by tweeting about a potential buyout of his company.

Now the SEC is alleging that Musk twice tweeted about Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price without going through the appropriate approvals. Meanwhile, Dogecoin is once again soaring after the cryptocurrency trade platform Coinbase listed the meme coin. And Elon Musk tweeted about the inevitable rise of Dogecoin while he was talking down Bitcoin, kind of, which is interesting. So he's using Twitter a lot. Just yesterday, there were like 90 of them. And I was like, just two? Just two?

At this point, I think he should do whatever he wants because they don't seem to have any interest in regulating him at all. I mean, I don't think it's his fault at this point. What do you think? I had a few thoughts when I saw this. And the first is we on the left, I think, do ourselves a disservice by believing that progressive ideals are not acknowledging that there's a difference between men and women. I think the sexes are different. All right. Okay. Well, I thought about- I think so. I have children. I know this.

Yeah. Dolls. Yeah. Put a boy and a it. I have children. I know this. Yeah. Dolls. Yeah. Put a boy and a girl down and then put dolls and cars down and see what happens. Anyways. I don't know. Clara likes cars, but I think anyway, but go ahead. Yes. But there are different- I am the voice of Kingston. Okay. I am the voice of Kingston. All right. All right. Just give me some room here. Okay. So can you think of, so one of a great male attribute is decisiveness and an unfortunate externality of that decisiveness is that sometimes those decisions aren't well thought out or considered. Okay.

Can you think of a woman, a woman of power who has actually put out, I don't know, messaging with 140 or 280 characters and not said to herself, should I do this before I press send? Yeah, they can't think it through. When you talk about it, if you were to tell me, all right, here's an individual who's going to send a tweet out that could potentially incite violence, or this is an individual putting a tweet out that could threaten his ability to put people in space, to electrify the world. Yeah, he can't resist. Can you think of a woman anywhere in the world who does this? No, I cannot.

And it really is, there's a lesson here for young people, and that is everybody needs people in their lives that are guardrails. I have this guy, I've talked about him, a very generous, successful man who's very involved in NYU, William guy named William Berkeley, Bill Berkeley. He calls me on a regular basis on a weekend. He doesn't even say who he is. Doesn't even say, are you busy? He doesn't say, hi, Scott.

He's like, for someone as smart as you, you say really stupid things. And then he goes on to tell me. And then he goes on to tell me what I've done that's wrong. Oh, what did you do recently? You know, I'd put out this grid of universities that were going to perish. And he's Oh, what did you do recently? You know, I put out this grid of universities that were going to perish. And he's like, why would you say universities that are struggling are going to perish? He's like, that's not helping those universities. No. And I really

don't like these calls because he has this habit of being right. Yeah. And it is so, it is such a gift for me. So this guy just calls you? I kind of like that. I'm going to start doing that, but go ahead. You do that. You just text me. Oh're like, what the fuck? You call Sheryl Sandberg University. I mean, you just like go after me. Just go after me. All right, go ahead. Anyways, but people need Bill Berkley's and Kara Swisher's in their lives. And you know what? This guy clearly doesn't have that. And it is such a poor reflection. Think about this. I just got off one public company board.

I'm just about to go on another. What if I was the largest shareholder on one of these boards and I put out a tweet saying we're taking the company private at a 60% premium? Right. Right? And then, I mean, if I started doing that shit, I would probably be- Yeah, I just was noticing some of these tweets. How much is that doge in the window? Hold him for the court. He really has-

Or what if I had the company- Diamond hands, credit to our master of the coin. He's really doing a lot. Or what if I bought a ton of this, had the company, which I was the largest shareholder of, use their balance sheet to buy a bunch of the cryptocurrency and then use my influence online to pump it. And then because we were going to miss earnings, I sold it out of profit to wallpaper over the fact that we missed earnings. And then I started being critical of it and it crashed. Do you know what would happen to any board member or CEO in America? So talk about the board members,

because at this point, I don't think it's his fault. Like, right? Like, if no one's going to stop him, not the SEC, not the board, why would he? Like, because he doesn't have, look, we all realize Elon Musk doesn't have a whole lot of impulse control, right?

That's not a new, fresh idea. What could happen? They have no credibility, the SEC, at this point. Oh, I don't. I think if you wave your middle finger long enough in the face of the government he's been waiting it for years like i i let me put it this way two words

gary gensler okay all right i think this guy i would not want to with this guy and also i think during the trump administration head for those who don't know well the trump administration was fond of of uh kind of circumventing or kneecapping any government agency. They weren't supportive. They were cutting budgets everywhere. Reagan started the screed against the government. Biden doesn't sign up for that. Biden supports these organizations. I think they're getting additional funding. I think this Gensler individual is a smart, serious guy. And it's interesting where they're going after them. They're going after them around a different issue, right? Their entry point here is around

DojaCoin. What did they, around his tweets around, what were they upset about? I forget. The SEC is upset about- This is about solar panels. This is about solar panels. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't guess that. Yeah. This is a public company. This is his solar company. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't guess that. Yeah. This is a public company. This is his solar company. But go ahead. But they've said, okay, enough is enough. Find out legally where he has really caused tripwires here.

And the board, the board is a terrible board. A board is supposed to – it is very hard as a CEO to read the label from inside the bottle. And your board is supposed to be able to look at the company, look at the dynamics, look at the numbers, look at the market and say, you know, for someone who has some distance from this situation, Elon, you probably shouldn't be saying that we're taking the company private when that's a lie. You probably shouldn't be saying funding security. You probably shouldn't be manipulating an asset class to pay for earnings and then taking it down. You're putting us all at risk. The board is probably – I mean, boards have never – board members never go to jail. There's only been like eight board members in the history of – or like the last 20 years that actually had to come out of pocket.

The first thing you ask when you go on a board is what's your DNO insurance. Right. But this board, at some point, they're going to start naming names on this board and go you know i have spoken to several and they just say well we let elon be that's what you get out of them when you talk to them like what you know boys will be boys thing is bullshit i just don't buy that it's not his fault what was interesting is he retweeted something a day ago from last july um where it's a picture of a cloud with a dog face on it, and it says Dogecoin standard, and then it's going to cover the global financial system.

I think it's a picture of a sand attack in Saudi Arabia. It looks like one of those things. And so it's really, I don't quite know how he can keep doing this, but he's very subtle. It's interesting how they're going to figure it out, how they're going to do that. But I think this board just doesn't want to rein him in. They just don't rein Elon in is the theme of that. It's because they're not a board. They're a bunch of people that show up, and they've made a ton of money. They got options. So they've all probably made just an options for the board, probably somewhere between $5 million and $50 million each.

And they just show up and nod a lot and then massage his back and tell him what a genius it is and they don't do their job they should never be allowed to be on a board again they're terrible fiduciaries well terrible money they're making is massive you know well that's but that's a fair point it's it's easy to ignore things it's easy it's easy not to say you're damaging the world when it's raining money your vision gets blurred but if you do the term fiduciary it's a very specific term, and it's a wonderful term. It means you are supposed to represent other people's interests. That's what it means to be a fiduciary. Although the fans love it.

Like, look, the fans love it. They egg them on. The same thing, you know, in the millennial sort of stock market with AMC. Look at the AMC stock going up to whatever a share. Was it 40, then 70? That doesn't appear to be one individual. It appears to be a pump and potentially dump or a poop and scoop across people that are doing nothing different than any hedge funds doing, and they're being successful. But it's not an

individual taking it up and then taking the proceeds to increase their earnings and then taking it down. If we find out that after SNL, he bought more DojaCoin and now is pumping it, I think he's in real trouble. I think this shit is getting pretty serious for him. And unfortunately, he doesn't have anyone around him to say, boss, what the actual fuck are you doing? What are you doing?

This is not in your self-interest. Stop it. Yeah. AMC stuff is a similar thing. So it doesn't relate. It's just what it is. Like looking at the stock thing, it's just, it went from, I don't know, in this year, it's gone up and down.

Day's range was $41 to $62, which is, and a 52-week range, $191 to $72. That is crazy. And that was yesterday. It doubled in value yesterday. Yeah. It doubled in value. It went up to $72. Now it's down in the 50s.

But obviously people are like pumping and whatever they're doing, poop and stuff. Well, it's become, it's totally detached. Typically. And meme stock again. Yeah. Stocks are supposed to represent underlying cash flows or ownership. And there's a few companies that have become basically currencies for, you know, for, I don't want to call it gambling, speculation. Yeah.

And they're allowed to do that. And if they use, they're using Reddit and Twitter, Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn used to use Barron's and CNBC. So they're not doing anything wrong. But when, it's just strange to have a company in the middle of all of this, because AMC, there's nothing's changed about this company from a secular standpoint.

Nothing has changed about the actual company. I think it's still in trouble. I think that they were smart. They raised, I think, another $250 or $400 million in capital to take advantage of this crazy stock price. But I think that capital is going to be a peer, not a bridge to a future. Well, interesting. They're offering free popcorn to meme stock investors, AMC is,

which is like taking part of it. And obviously, the Memorial Day weekend did very well for them, but that's because people, there's sort of this pent up feeling of wanting to go. They did very well over the holiday weekend. So, but the problem is, did you go to one? Did you, did you go to one? Go to one. A movie theater. Have you gone to a movie theater yet? I went to IPIC a bit ago and you still had to wear a mask. I love IPIC, and I don't know if you saw. Speaking of your favorite theaters, Alamo.

By the way, bankruptcy can actually be quite cleansing and liberating. Yeah, absolutely. And Alamo's announced that they're actually going to open post-bankruptcy to new theaters in Manhattan. Yeah. bankruptcy to new theaters in Manhattan. Yeah. Yeah. But I think an organization like AMC, I think the company would have actually been better off long-term had it been able to go through bankruptcy and get rid of a lot of its leases

that are albatrosses. I don't think the company is sustainable with its current cost structure right now. Yeah, probably not. But like two movies, A Quiet Place 2 did very well. It grossed $57 million at John Krasinski. The Quiet Place 2 did very well. It grossed $57 million at John Krasinski. And, you know, there was $100 million over in North America over the holiday weekend,

which is the strongest performance since COVID started, which is incredible. And, of course, the people at Paramount and every place that was saying it shows that there's a big recovery happening. And they do have a lot of hits. They have a lot of hits um they have a lot of hits coming um for this summer they've got in the heights uh fast and furious black widow they've got top gun they've got all kinds of things coming um but i just feel like it's you know people are giving me a hard time look amc's stock is up i'm like it's a meme stock it's not doesn't mean anything um so i wonder if it will continue and or not how do you look at that? When you say it, what is it? The people are coming back to the theater because, for example,

In the Heights is going to simultaneously be in the theaters and on HBO. I'm going to watch it on HBO. If you want to get a group of people in denial together, invite people over who own office buildings and movie theaters. Yeah. Yeah, everybody wants to go back to the movie theater. We want to go back once or twice, we're gonna go back. There's some people who love it,

but the structural shift is that 20 to 30% of the people who used to go to movies regularly have found out, oh my God, there's amazing content. And then they upgraded, they bought a new TV at Best Buy because they were at home so much. Oh, and there's just, there's been literally, the total box office take in domestic theaters because they were at home so much. Oh, and there's just, there's been literally, the total box office take in domestic theaters is somewhere between six and eight billion a year.

Yeah, small. That additional money has gone into streaming programming just in the last 12 months, on top of the 30 billion. Well, it'll be interesting to see how they test this. Warner Brothers is going to release all of the 2021 films, both simultaneously in the theaters and on HBO Max. Quiet Place

too is not going to the Paramount Plus platform for 45 days. That was at the insistence of John Krasinski and others who were pushing. Could attract new people, but that's 45 days. I'll wait for that particular movie, but it'll be interesting

to see what deals these creators get, like whether they get theaters first. They seem to be insisting on theaters first because that's the way their deals are structured. And how do you decide how much they help a platform when there's multiple things on it? So it'll be an interesting time for them to sort out the finances of this. I can tell you, I haven't gone back in a theater,

and I think probably Fast and Furious will be the first one I see there. Maybe in the Heights. It's the same as office buildings. Office buildings will still exist. There'll just be a third fewer of them. Theaters will still exist. There might be 50% fewer of them.

And there's still a home for content, mostly with men in capes or people driving very fast cars or spot, you know, these big bursts or Avenger, whatever it is. James Bond I'll probably see in the theater. Right, if Bezos can't strike a deal to put it seven days early on Amazon Prime Video. But there's, these things are in structural decline. And what people fail to

realize or don't often consider is that if 20% or if there's a gross demand destruction of people going back into offices of 20 to 30%, that probably makes 50% of office buildings no longer tenable or viable. Because if they're levered up 70 to 80% and they lose 20% of the revenue, the building no longer makes sense. And then the bank comes in up 70% to 80% and they lose 20% of their revenue, the building no longer makes sense. And then the bank comes in or the debtors come in and say, okay, we own this building, now what? And I think a lot of them are going to say, we're going to convert it to something else, either residential or some sort of other mixed use or something. But you're going to see a lot of buildings flipped upside down.

I would agree. It'll be interesting to see how much people go back to it. September seems to be the drop, everyone going back for good. Like for three days a week. Apple announced it. I know other tech companies were less so, but I think most companies, September seems to be when everybody's going to see. We'll see what happens then and how people like it. There's a lot of people resisting it, as we've talked about. So we'll see. That's a perfect analogy, though. Three days a week. Because the fastest way to process information is zero once. We're all trying to decide whether it's we all go back to the office and it's same, same, or none of us go back to the office and all remote. And the answer is it's neither. Yeah.

So if the majority of America goes back to the office three days a week, that's a 40% demand destruction in office space. Yeah. Digital works. You know how many days a week I'll go back to the office? Zero. Zero. Well, you've always done. You're a pioneer. But there'll be different asset classes.

Malls are actually an interesting metaphor. And that is what's going to happen with office space is people are going to have, companies are going to decide to have dramatically less square feet, but they're actually going to spend more per square feet. And they're going to say, if we're going to bring people in less often, we want it to be experiential. It's for basically a recruiting tool. We want people to meet others. We want it to be aspirational. We want people to feel really good about JP Morgan. We want them to feel really good about GoDaddy or whatever it is. Offices are awful. I hate offices. That's why I stopped going to them. I hate them. Yeah, but Facebook and Google got this. They started investing. The tech companies

would get it. They're like, let's make the office place a great social place. It was almost like a means of compensation, not just to store them and put them in stalls. So the tier A stuff, similar to the way general growth properties and Simon Malls actually did well through the destruction or the majority of the destruction in the last 30 years of malls, because the top malls, there's a flight to quality. But the tier two and tier three office space, oh my gosh, look out below. It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. All right, Scott, time for a quick break. We'll be right back to talk about the FOIA release of Dr. Anthony Fauci's emails. You're never private, just in general, from the early days of the pandemic and what it tells us and a listener mail question.

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had been released through a Freedom of Information Act. Within the emails, it showed some of Fauci's correspondence with Silicon Valley executives, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, where he insisted he was not being muzzled by President Trump. That was an interesting thing. Of course, that's what he's going to say in emails. What's he going to say in emails?

And there's been a range of responses from the email dump. Obviously, Republican Senator Rand Paul called Fauci a massive fraud, keeping up with this sort of weird online meme about him. You know, the right has sort of seized upon Fauci as some sort of demonic figure that they've made him into. I thought the emails were dull and sort of showed a bureaucrat who doesn't want to say anything controversial to anybody in these things, you know, showed a little frustration with what was going on and the confusion and figuring out what to do. But I thought it was a big old nothing burger. These are FOIAs, so people don't know. Can you explain a little bit about FOIA and why it's important? Yeah, FOIA is a way that you get, anybody can do it, by the way.

Freedom of Information Act. Freedom of Information Act. And the public has access to all federal agency records, including email would be one of the bigger things. That's why they have to preserve these things, although apparently the Trump administration didn't preserve all the stuff they were supposed to, but you're supposed to. And then you can exclude things for security reasons, and they tend to do that quite a lot.

But it's important to keep the government transparent and accountable, and people can pull all this stuff about misconduct, waste, spending, threats to public safety, and stuff like that. And it's meant to increase transparency, and you just make a request and you wait. That's essentially what you do. And this was, I think the Washington Post requested this. You put the request in, there's a cost to it for them to search it and stuff like that. And you can FOIA anything.

I could FOIA Scott Galloway if there's anything about you with the FBI. You want a FOIA Kingston. A Kingston. Come FOIA Kingston. Anybody can request a FOIA Kingston? Come FOIA Kingston. Anybody can request a FOIA, but journalists use it quite a lot. It's also, it's just agency records.

And so, you know, that's why when you're, whether you're in a regular company or anything else, hard to get stuff out of a company, people can subpoena that information. But in the case of the government, it was, you know, they just, this is his emails

between and among people and he's got to be seen. And so I think a lot of people are very careful and I think that's what this showed. And I thought they were, I just, I can't even get that, like, Ben Shapiro wrote a kind of an inane thing. Like this shows he's prevaricating.

I'm like, no, it doesn't. It shows he's trying to say nothing and trying to like do his job. And, you know, she, some things, you know, people asking if people are safe, but he was trying to put out he's not been muzzled. And I think that's fair. I think he was trying to fairly say what he was doing.

He was obviously clearly frustrated, visibly frustrated by them. And then, you know, you have Zuckerberg asking if they could help. And that's, you know, he got an offer from Morgan Fairchild to use her Twitter account on his behalf. He had all kinds of letters. And then, you know, responding to the fact

that there were like bobbleheads about him and this and that. And so he just said, just tweeted about, should not be frightened, we're trying to help. He wrote very pleasant notes back. You know, he just didn't. Here's one. This is Morgan Fairchild.

There's nothing to be done right now since there are a few cases in the country, and these cases are being properly isolated. So go about your daily business. However, be aware the behavioral adjustments may need to be made if the pandemic occurs. So this is right before he wrote. Wait, Flamingo Road, Morgan Fairchild? Yeah, that one. Yeah, yeah.

She was outstanding in that. Yeah, well, she actually is very active on Twitter. I think she's quite smart on Twitter. Is she? So, yeah. So, she's gotten kind of activist a little bit, I would say. She's a hottie. She's a hottie.

In any case, she's also very intelligent. She's a hottie. She'd probably be a voiceover person if she wanted. Do you think Fran Drescher and I will be friends? No. I get the sense she's going to like me. No. I get the sense she's going to like me.

I don't think you ever meet these people. Oh, really? I don't think so. Oh, wait, you're right. I'm in a studio. Yeah. There's no, like, wrap party? No.

For Kingston and Fran? Sometimes they're together, but I don't think you're together together. I don't get that sense. You know, and so like that. Anyway, so they, you know, they want to say no. And then there's a lot of people that insulted Trump and he just doesn't take the bait. He just says, thank you.

So I don't know what to say. It's a great way to know this. You know, a lot of it is like, as BuzzFeed said, his tone is a mix of friendly, informal, employing phrases like, let's us discuss. Many thanks. And in rare displays of displeasure, a delicate yikes. And he signs off as Tony.

I mean, he just is sidestepping most of the time. The term used was nothing burger. I read this, and I thought, oh, wow, what happened? And I'm like, this is like bad porn. You expect it to be titillating, and it's just not. And the thing that struck me was, after reading these things, you know, influence is so, it's really interesting to follow the cadence and the kind of currency of influence and who really has influence.

Right. And I've been thinking a lot about the most important companies of the last 30 years are almost always venture-backed. And 40% of all venture capitalists and probably 70% of venture capital influence comes from two places, Harvard and Stanford. And you're like, well, that in and of itself isn't terrible. 40% of venture capitalists went to one of two schools and 70% of the powerful venture capitalists. So you have essentially the zeitgeist of these places

that get 50,000 applications and let in 1,400 people. And good or bad, there's wonderful things about Harvard and Stanford, but that mentality is effectively has just so much outsized influence over the most important companies in the world. And then I look at this thing, and the thing that struck me is I read somewhere that billionaires on average

speak to their senator once a month. And if you don't believe that the billionaire class has a disproportionate, and who are billionaires? Oh, what do you know? It's these white guys in tech. And you think, do we need serious thought around counterbalances to this one type of demographic and mentality? I mean, diversity of the gene pool, diversity of thought is so important for successful outcomes. And I'm not being politically correct here. Thought is so important for successful outcomes.

And I'm not being politically correct here. Companies with diverse boards, companies with people with different backgrounds, they just outperform companies where it's all groupthink because we're all from the same background. And the people that have access to an individual deciding the response to a pandemic all tend to be these white guy billionaires. And they've earned it. I think Bill Gates is a very thoughtful guy around healthcare. Mark Zuckerberg controls a platform that could be really helpful. So I don't begrudge them. But we have to be thoughtful about what does it mean when a nation is essentially controlled by a demographic that now represents about 22% or 28% of the population in general. And maybe isn't that in touch with America? Do we need counterbalances here? But I thought, it's just a

different world. I don't get to email Fauci. He doesn't write, yikes, back to me. Do you write him? I don't get a response when I send an email to Dr. Fauci. I don't have his email. But I bet he would. I bet he would. I don't know. You're right. I mean, obviously, he, you know. Does he know I'm in the Tooth Fairy Tale? I doubt it. I doubt it. If you're in the Obama thing, he might. Anyway, he was, you know, he got, you know, he just, a lot of people, he responds to a lot more people than you think.

It's really interesting once you get his email. And apparently he's quite, you know, I have people here in Washington, he texts and, you know, he's a normal person, like, and he has to respond. He's an inspiration. Look at how difficult, who's had a harder job than him? But I got to tell you, the attacks on him are really fascinating. My mother the other day, after Fox Newsing it for a long enough time, was like, you know, he's a liar. I'm like, no, he's not.

He's just changing with as, you know, as the, as the thing developed, they're making, they're trying to make a big deal of it, led by Rand Paul and others, that he's like some sort of— I just don't get it. The far right hates Bill Gates when he's trying to take an interest in solving malaria, and then they ease up on him when they find out that he's— then he's making inappropriate overtures to women at work. All of a sudden, they've gone quiet on the guy. I just don't get their issue with him.

Anyway, these poor things are interesting. They do give you insight. I think in this case, very little. But we'll see. I mean, we'll see. I think he's a very careful public servant who's been doing it for 30 years, and he's not going to, like, say Trump is an asshole in the middle of the whole thing. He's too smart to do that. He may think that.

I suspect he thinks that. But, you know, whatever. He doesn't do it. He just makes his little face and raises his eyebrows in public, and I think that's the most you're going to get out of him, right wing. Sorry. And he was right you know he's one of three or four people that leaves contact with with trump not not contaminated by the radioactivity yeah they all did they all did him and also by the way did a good job yeah um she got out but everyone no one else left alive everyone else got maybe gary gary gary cone cone maybe no i don't

know about that. I agree. I think he should have said something at the Charlottesville thing. Anyway, there's lots of things he should have said. Anyway, he wanted to get his tax cut, whatever. Okay, Scott, let's move on to listener mail. Roll tape. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail. Hi, Kara and Scott. Nate here from Michigan. My question is regarding Roku. I noticed recently that Roku has acquired some shows that originated on Quibi. These are shows like Chrissy's Court with Chrissy Teigen or Cup of Joe with Joe Jonas. So my question is this. What do you think about Roku not necessarily being acquired by a larger company? And I know that's been talked about on the show before, but instead of being acquired, what do you think about them, Roku, acquiring content creators and other productions

to start to offer an exclusive catalog to Roku users. Thanks so much. Well, is this not down your alley, Scott Galloway? You love that Roku. I don't know. Let me think. This is a Scott Galloway. Was this like your cousin calling in for this one? Yeah, I planted that one.

Yeah. Tell us what you think. Could Roku make a dent in content given the mega mergers of Time Warner, Discovery, et cetera, et cetera? Roku and less so Shopify because it's received so much attention are probably the most under the radar

innovative companies of the last 10 years. And Roku has carved out a space. Can you imagine how difficult it would be for that pitch initially? Oh yeah, I'm going to compete. I'm going to compete against Amazon and hardware manufacturers and Apple. And they've managed to carve out a place,

and they're the number one streaming hardware for streaming. And one of the key kind of concepts in terms of adding more than $10 or $20 billion market cap has been verticalization, and that is Apple forward integrating into stores. And then if you look at Netflix and Spotify, when their stocks really started to tear, it's when they did two things. One, they dropped the first season of House of Cards at proprietary content. They forward integrated into their own original content that you couldn't find anywhere else. And when Spotify did that $100 million deal with Joe Rogan and said, we're going to have original content. And this is what Roku's doing.an and said, we're going to have original content.

And this is what Roku's doing. They're like, we have an enormous audience. We can take that fire hose of that audience and spray it on our own content. The users say, this is differentiated content only available on Roku. So maybe I don't buy the Fire Stick or whatever it might be. In addition, the CEO, they're smart. He took a $1.7 billion investment in Quibi and went in and picked it up for $100 million. And Jeffrey Katzenberg- There's a lot there.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, it's easy to make fun of Quibi. Jeffrey Katzenberg is a great storyteller. And there's probably some gems in there. There's probably some really interesting content that's fun. Is it award-winning? Is it going to collect Emmys and Academy Awards? No. But is it fun? And is it a reason to tune in or think I like Roku a little bit more? Which, by the way, has a multi-billion dollar market cap, picked it up for $100 million. This is why distressed investing is the best asset class. This was essentially a distressed investment. He went into a $1.7 billion bill. Why did nobody else grab it? That's an interesting question. I don't know if they have i don't even know what the

format here doesn't like how does viacom run three and six minute shows like how do they whereas roku develop it into shows right i know that content creators own certain parts of it there were all these deals that um that uh katzenberg made where they got to keep their IP in some way. I forget. I totally, utterly forgotten. But there could be bigger shows here, correct? Because some of them were pretty good. They were sort of interesting.

Sure, see what gets traction. And not only that, the thing about Roku that Quibi really didn't have because not that many people download the app. Roku has direct interface with the consumer so they can get data sets on. It appears that people are watching,

you know, Judge Chrissy or whatever it is is with Chrissy Teigen or Teigen, and we could develop into a 30 minute show and then they can test it. And I mean, that's really the key here. The thing about the streamer is that people forget. They say, well, it's because it's ad free, it's subscription revenue. Yeah, but they also-

They don't watch anything. People watch just for a test. They have direct access to the data. They can say, okay- I often go through Netflix and just watch the trailers. And there are long trailers there, which is interesting. So what type of content should they acquire? You're talking about distressed acquisitions.

At some point, you don't want to have all the bargain basement shit, you know, and let everything else go to HBO. But all the good stuff. That's where Netflix started. That's true. But how could they differentiate? Is it news? Because they've all stayed out of news, right? Pretty much.

HBO sort of dabbled in it with vice news tonight and that didn't work out so well um how can they differentiate that's a real that's a really interesting question i think that they've said we're going to do this kind of high-end fun quirky short form content i uh quibby but what you brought up is really interesting and that is the only final frontier that's going to go behind a paywall or hasn't gone behind a paywall is kind of news slash politics and business. There is no CNBC on Apple or Amazon Prime Video. There is no news. There's no CNN behind the wall.

Right. They tried that cheese thing or whatever. Where did that go? Cheddar. Cheddar. Where'd that get sold? Yeah, it got bought by a french cable company yeah whatever yeah and i don't you know i don't i don't i've heard much sort of went to the germans and i don't you know it sort of it sits there and generates traffic i think is what actually business insider is um it's been a win both for the acquirer and for Business Insider. It's done really well. But anyways, those are the final frontiers. And somebody is going to say, we're going to produce a 10, 20, 30-minute summary of the day's news or a 10, 20, 30-minute summary of the markets in the morning and put it behind a wall, give it to our subscribers.

Who's watching the Roku? Who are their users? I don't even have any idea. Is it young? I don't know that much about it. Yeah. We should have the CEO on. Who's watching the Roku? Who are their users? I don't even have any idea. Is it young? Is it old? I don't know that much about it. Yeah. We should find out.

We should have the CEO on. He's a very bright guy. We should have an animated show. An animated news. There is an animated show. I think what you need is an authoritative voice to do the voiceover on an animated show. Stephen Colbert does an animated news show, a funny one. But do you think they're still going to get bought?

Who? Roku. Oh, no. It's too late. Roku's now the acquirer, not the acquirer. Roku's market cap is. Not Netflix saying there's enough of you people. No, Roku is now going to be on top. They're going to be acquiring companies. This is a company. Who's the creative executive there? I don't even know. $44 billion market cap. I mean, that's what you realize.

Roku's worth more than almost the entire cable bundle at this point. Yeah, all cap. I mean, that's what you realize Roku's worth more than almost the entire cable bundle at this point. Yeah, all right, okay. I mean, Roku, if you think about it, Roku's gonna be worth almost as much as this new kind of discovery. I don't know what the equity value is gonna be there. Anyways, Roku is now a player. All right, so Quibi, plus or minus,

what do you think of where Katzenberg goes next? Oh, I think he continues to be Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood icon, and he enjoys his, you know, he's an incredible storyteller. I think he's a billionaire in his own right. I think he'll do a bunch of interesting projects and cool stuff. He's got to be exhausted. Yeah, but you know what?

And this is a blessing. I'm exhausted. I always say this to entrepreneurs. Yeah. The best thing is success. The second best thing is to fail fast. And that is when you're at his age, he didn't want to find out

that Quibi didn't work over 10 years. Yeah, true. I started an e-commerce incubator in 1999 called Brand Farm backed by Maveron, Goldman Sachs, a bunch of JP Morgan. And the best thing about it was, the best thing about it was, was it failed in about six months. Yeah, you should have called me right away.

I would have told you don't do that. Oh, I should have called you a lot of times. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, whereas Red Envelope, Red Envelope, it failed over 10 years. I know, but you know what? That wasn't a bad idea. It was just early.

It was early. I appreciate that. Anyways, but my point is, success is the best thing, but a close second is to fail fast because then you just move on. Brand farm for me was a speed bump. Whereas red envelope was kind of like,

you know, several hundred batteries of chemotherapy in my Vietnam over a decade. That's going to offend a lot of people. But anyways. Fair, that's a fair point. We'll see, I'd be interested to see where Katzenberg goes. A decade long failure really, really hurts. Agreed. Fast, feeling fast. It's like a fair point. We'll see. I'd be interested to see where Katzenberg goes. A decade-long failure really, really hurts. Agreed.

Fast. Feeling fast. It's like a bad marriage. Get out. Get out if it's bad. Annul. Quibi for Meg and for Jeff is an annulment. No one's going to care.

Fine, next. Fine, next. That's true. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in Hollywood. It'd be interesting to see where Meg Whitman's going to do.

All right, Scott. One more quick break. We'd be interesting to see what Meg Whitman's going to do. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. 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,

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for your free trial. Constantcontact.ca Okay, Scott, what is your prediction? It's been a very interesting show. I'm learning a lot. I'm learning about you and things. What's your prediction? So I think that we're going to see, I think that the subscription part of the world,

look, the whole world is digressing to two business constructs, and it's either iOS, where you pay a premium, and you get more privacy, a more elegant solution, kind of the premium, or it's going to Android, where you get essentially the product for free, and they figure out a way to monetize you as a user. And by the way, the majority of the world picks Android. Two-thirds of the world, 70-plus percent says, I love having a free phone. I love having free platforms. phone. I love having free platforms. And if they mine my data and use it, and there's some externalities, I'll complain about it. But every day I vote to go Android, if you will. I think

we're going to see increased market share across the iOS subscription part of the world. Even these things around Fauci's emails, I think individuals are really coming in touch or starting to understand just how negative some of the externalities and to the extent that they are as individuals being monetized. And this is a long-winded way of me talking up one of my recent investments that I was actually introduced to because of you. I've invested in Neva, which is subscription search. And if you think about search, Think about search, $150 billion sector with one player that has a 93% market share. And that has never happened.

Go ahead. Google. That has never happened in the history of business, and it is unsustainable. And the business model of ad-supported media essentially says the key stakeholder is the advertiser. So we're not necessarily going to always look out for the person making the queries. We're going to take him or her not to the best place for their query, but a place we can further monetize them. And then the content creator gets less than maybe 1% of the value generated by their content because our focus is on the advertiser and trying to figure out a way to enrage people

and get them kind of get their attention more. And it leads to really negative externalities. Subscription, whether it's the move to Netflix, whether it's the move to LinkedIn, more and more people like the idea of saying, I don't want my data molested. I want more privacy. I want a business model that focuses on the relationship with me. And the smartest people aren't pitching advertisers. They're pitching new product ideas that enhance my relationship and make it worthwhile for me to spend $12. Anyways, Neva's launched its beta, five bucks a month. We talked to Sridhar. I think we brought him here, right? Didn't we have him on here? Yeah. We didn't have him here. I think you had him at Sway.

No, I didn't have him on Sway. I've had him on. I've had him on. I believe we've had him here. Anyway, in any case, I should have him on Sway. He's a really interesting guy. He's a very top executive at Google. He was right in the center of all that and sort of got tired of the way they were sucking information. I mean, that's his story. Obviously, he was there while he was doing it. But really interesting guy. He brought an incredible team of people, technologists.

It is an uphill battle for him, I'm sure. He's so used to being on the Death Star, essentially. And now he's in a tiny little ship. But the ideas are really interesting. And he's a real brainy and interesting entrepreneur. And I like him. I like talking to him a lot. I think he's really interesting. And he's got, you're right, I think someone's going to have to do this. I mean, you have DuckDuckGo, you've got that. And you're right, it's unsustainable. But what's hard is the thing you're fighting is inertia. Google's like, oh, Google, it works, right? And people like it.

It has a, no matter how monopolistic they are and how much they're abusing your data, they're not Facebook, right? And they're not, you don't feel that way about them. And they have, you know, there's a lot of positive brand attributes for Google. Same thing with Apple. There's a lot of problems at Apple, but they have really you know, there's a lot of positive brand attributes for Google. Same thing with Apple. There's a lot of problems at Apple, but they have really positive brand attributes.

So I think it's tough, but you're right. I think in search in lots of areas, you know, even Twitter Blue, if they actually put together something that you would want, is something I would consider paying for. Oh, you think subscription? Twitter and subscription? That's an awful idea. I just don't think they've got it together. But think about it this way. Subscription is such and subscription? That's an awful idea. I just don't think they've got it together. But think about it this way. Subscription is such a superior business, and the marketplace values it in a multiple of revenues versus multiple of EBITDA, that if other players in search capture 1% of the revenue of the search market, they'll capture 10% of the market cap, which, by the way, is $160 billion.

Yep, yep. So you're going to see a variety of niche players, including Neva, that say we're going to exit the ecosystem that paints us into a business model where we're no longer focused on the end consumer, the creator. We're focused on the advertiser. We're advertising. It's out of the picture. Yeah, that's right. I think that's a really good – that's a very good prediction. I have a short prediction. Yeah.

Did you see that kid, Paxton Smith, from the Texas – she's Texas High School. She's a valedictorian. Nice. And so I don't know if you know this. When you do valedictorian speeches, you have to submit them to the administration and they approve them. Are you saying you were valedictorian? so i don't know if you know this when you do valedictorian speeches you have to submit them to the administration and are you saying you were valedictorian is that why no i was not i don't think we even had that in my school anyway a lot of high schools do um and um and she was giving her speech and she changed it mid you know she just changed it she didn't deliver the speech she said she was gonna deliver and she did a very

an incredible incredible speech about the abortion laws in Texas, the very onerous abortion laws they're passing to try to restrict abortions. You know, let's listen to it. Let's take a listen. And I'm talking about this today on a day as important as this, on a day honoring 12 years of hard academic work, on a day where we are all gathered together, on a day where you are most inclined to listen to a voice like mine a woman's voice to tell you that this is a problem and it's a problem that cannot wait and I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights a war on the rights of your mothers a war on my body and a war on my rights, a war on the rights of

your mothers, a war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot stay silent. Thank you. Where did she give that speech? At high school. On a football field world a Texas football field oh my god good for her and right here at Dallas High School of Auditorium I gotta fight I've written her I'm like please come girl she this speech she was like basically

stay the fuck off my body you know and here's why But she's so smart because she's the valedictorian. She did it. But I love that she, like, just did it. She just, like, yeah, I'm doing this speech about how we should move forward together and in hand and hand and this and that. Instead, she was like, patoosh. Love it. Love it. Did you know seven in ten valedictorians?

Predict she will be a very important figure in the future. Junior senator from Texas in 20 years. Did you know that seven in ten high school valedictorians are girls? And I say girls because they're usually 17. Yeah. But 7 in 10. Well, and then what happens? Claire is going to be a valedictorian, I think.

And then more go to college and more graduate from college. Relatively speaking, and it creates a host of issues we talked about, young women are doing really well and young men are doing really poorly. In any case, let's watch this girl's future. Good for her. Good for her. The fallout must be intense. But you know what?

She was like, what a badass. I wish I was that much of a badass. I'll tell you that. And I don't say that often. Anyway, that is the show. We'll be back on Tuesday. Paxton, congratulations. Please send us your listener mail questions.

We love them. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to have a chance to be on the podcast. Scott, read us out. I'm glad you brought attention to that. I think that's wonderful. She's badass. Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis, our new inter-town engineer this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows. If you like the show, please subscribe. If you're on Android, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. Please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Let's go listen to Lake Highlands valedictorian Paxton Smith. Well done. Well done. Leadership is the ability to take shit and sacrifice short-term popularity, economic vitality to say and do the right thing. Here's a leader, Kara.

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