Pivot - The Twitter Files, How to Make Good Business Decisions, and Guest Maria Ressa

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

In another big week for content moderation, internal Twitter emails detailing the decision to block the Hunter Biden laptop story were released, and Ye was suspended from Twitter. Then, welcome to Prof G University: Scott helps us understand how to make good business decisions for stakeholders. Plus, The DOJ wants an independent review into FTX’s bankruptcy, Tim Cook is on damage control on Capitol Hill, and Trump wants to flush the constitution down the toilet. Then, we’re joined by our Friend of Pivot, Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa, to talk about democracy and dictatorship. Maria’s new book, “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight For Our Future,” is out now. You can find Maria on Twitter at @mariaressa. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. How was your weekend, Scott?

That was really nice. I have my closest and oldest friend who I met in the fourth grade, Adam Markman, in town. Wow. And I've been thinking a lot about trying to— Did you know one in seven men in America—and it's up from one in 20 men just 20 years ago— one in seven men in America don't have a single friend. What? Men.

Don't have a single friend. And it's 1 in 10 for women. Friendship is under attack. Really? Yeah, we don't meet the random points of meeting them. The kind of ceremony and institutions have been broken through COVID. Following your friends on Instagram generally makes you like them less. People have decided they can no longer be friends with a large part of their traditional friend base because of their political leanings. Friendship is really under attack.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I would like to get rid of friends, but that's different. But I was reading a piece in the New York Times on kinless, people who are kinless as they get older. It's millions of people. It's an enormous amount of people. It's going to be more, too. But they have no kin. Children, they decided not to get married, et cetera, et cetera.

And so there's a growing coterie of these people, and they have to figure out how to take care of them. And they also have now lost a lot of friends. And so how do you – this one woman, it it was very sad, like she's just by herself. She said, I just talked to store clerks and my doctors, which was depressing on every level. So it was kind of interesting to how do you create those friendships and communities that are in person and in real life or online? I mean, there's online relationships. So it's definitely a big issue that we've got to go through, especially as there's this aging population who are isolated. Yeah, they say loneliness is the equivalent of smoking 17 cigarettes a day for your health. So essentially what you have is tens of millions of people, to look at it another way, 30 to 50 million Americans have all of a sudden started smoking a pack of cigarettes a day in terms of health impact.

I think it's going to be actually a really big topic of discussion and concern. Did you have a nice time with your friend? Did you play well? Yeah, we went out. He's dating a much younger woman, so I enjoy just being in that context. And we went out and got ridiculously fucked up. And then I spent the majority of Saturday recovering, and he spent the majority of Saturday trying to pretend that he can hang, he can roll with the young people. But it was fun to see that world for an evening. It's nice being old, I have to say. I came up and saw Mike Birbigli as I came to New York. Oh, you saw Mike's show?

Yeah, it was great. And I'm going to be interviewing him this week for ON. It was great. It was when we met him afterwards. Oddly enough, we met Drew Barrymore, too, who was backstage. Yeah, it was nice. And then Louis came. So it was a lovely, it was a lovely short time with my beautiful son. So today, we're going to have a lot of things to talk about. The newest front in content moderation and what it means for the future of social media. And Scott will help us understand how to make good business decisions for your stakeholder.

He's turning into Professor Galloway before our very eyes. Why not? A little teaching. And we'll speak with Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa, one of my friends, speaking of friends, about democracy and dictatorship. She's amazing.

But first, this weekend, Trump took to Truth Social to suggest that the fraud of the 2020 election was so serious that it, quote, allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. As usual, Trump's remarks were met with minimal backlash

by Republicans who are still going to vote for him, even though he doesn't like the Constitution. The statement comes in contrast to Kevin McCarthy's announcement last month that Republicans would read the entirety of the Constitution on the floor of the House when they take control in January. Oh, good God, this guy. And of course, they're like, oh, he tweets a lot of stuff. This one's pretty amazing. It's just sort of so comical. First off, he doesn't understand the Constitution. You know, this is the equivalent of when he got in front of a church

and held up the Bible and started making ways. We should suspend the Constitution. Yeah, that's going to happen. Well, now, you had the response that Republicans kind of had. Others,, Democrats were more like, hey, he's going to be the lead. He's probably going to be the candidate. Is that problematic? Should we not is a genius to feeding the rage machine no matter how ridiculous or stupid your argument is. ever been president and Musk would have attained the kind of wealth he's attained had they both not realized that it's more important than the world is thinking about you than what they think about you. And so what Trump has basically acquiesced to Musk is that Musk is now doing a more effective job of being the story every 72 hours. I mean, think about this, whether it's letting you on, kicking them off again, picking a fight with Apple. Something I'm fairly certain happens

is that Trump has a kitchen cabinet. I don't know if it's one person or three people. And their mission is the following, that you just need to be the story. There is wealth around fame, regardless of what you're famous for. And I'm telling you, Kara, and you can go back and really look at it, every 72 hours, they decide, regardless of what it's about, we need to be the story. And so, I'm trying to figure out, are we better off? And Democrats get angry that people aren't offended. That's our primary thing. Yeah. Why is this a story? Why isn't this a story? Yeah, Republicans, why aren't you offended? Why aren't you saying something? And the reality is

we probably, I'm not sure we just shouldn't be talking about it because it just adds- Well, that's what Republicans would like, to not be talking. But I'm not sure in the long run, I wonder if we'd be better off when it's sort of nonsense. I don't think this is going to get any traction. I don't think it's a real threat. I don't think it's—I think election denial or when Carrie Lake or a candidate start running for the electoral boards who are election deniers, I think that's a real threat, and we have to have a very public conversation about it. This is just treif.

This is just an attempt— Until he becomes the candidate. Until he becomes the candidate, then it matters. Well, but for this story, but the way he becomes the candidate is to be in the news every 48 hours. You think? I think people get tired of Menakee's back. To create rage on the other side, because now people vote for candidates not based on what they'll do for them, but their ability to inflame the other side, which they hate so much. And this rage has become kind of the fissure material for this nuclear reactor around.

If it works, if it works. There's a move for Democrats and some Republicans to get together and elect Fred Upton, who is a non-election denier, a very moderate guy to the speakership, because Kevin McCarthy's not sucking up enough to the right, which would be interesting. Wouldn't that be interesting? That would be interesting. Anyway, we'll see. You're right. I think you're probably right on the whole, but you should would be interesting. Wouldn't that be interesting? That would be interesting. Anyway, we'll see. You're right.

I think you're probably right on the whole, but you should still be irritated. Not more than irritated that probably the candidate for the Republican Party is talking for the end of the Constitution. We should pay attention to it. We should put a pin in it, as they say. By the way, I carry around a copy of the Constitution. Do you know that? I did not know that. I carry it all the time.

I like to refer to it when people argue with me. I carry around laser discs of women's prison film. It's kind of the same thing. Okay. It's kind of the same thing. All right. Okay. The DOJ is asking for an independent review of FTX's bankruptcy.

The Justice Department wants the probe to review, quote, substantial and serious allegations of fraud, dishonesty, and incompetence, which could have damaged crypto as a whole. The filing also described the meltdown as the, quote, fastest big corporate failure in American history. SBF is still, he's going to jail. I don't know what else to say. In some fashion, he's going to jail.

And I think his little pity party PR thing is not working well for him. Incredibly dumb. That's going to so come back to haunt him. He should not be. All he's doing is reminding everyone every day of just how insane and what a spectacle this was. And, I mean, he's being really poorly advised right now. Really poorly advised. I don't think he's being advised.

It's his father. It's him and his father. Well, his parents have done it. I mean, this is just the dumbest strategy ever. It's his father. It's him and his father. And that – no, actually, the truth is it was the crypto Taliban who didn't want to have a conversation about it and also VCs who claimed that institutions and regulators needed to stay out of the way and that the media didn't get it. Yeah, that's right. They were the ultimate enablers here and they decided, okay, we're going to write love letters. Sequoia Capital is going to put out a big thought piece on why he's the type of person they want to back, despite the fact he doesn't have a board, despite the fact he decided to incorporate in the Bahamas. Huh, wonder why, despite the fact there were no audited financials. And it's just so ridiculous.

It's like regulators, government, you just need to get out of the way. And then all of a sudden, it's like, well, where were you? It's your fault. I mean, it is- Right. No, I know. They just won't have any- It is the height of hypocrisy for them to not be holding up a mirror and going, okay, we got this wrong. They won't. They won't. It's the same thing with Elon. No matter what he does, he'd be pooped on the floor. They'd be like, brilliant move. Brilliant jujitsu move, sir. That kind of thing. Speaking of jujitsu, you know, whatever. Whatever, people. He's going to jail. That's pretty much what I think is happening here.

Also, speaking of damage control, someone who's effective at it, Tim Cook, was on Capitol Hill. He was also at the state dinner for Macron. The Apple CEO met with lawmakers on Thursday amidst criticism of big tech. Republican lawmakers complained about App Store fees and Apple's management of airdrop features during protests in China. Cook seemed to please the right ahead of Republicans taking control of the House, with Representative Jim Jordan, who said the Judiciary Committee will be calling their meeting. Very good. Of course, this is the same thing.

He did the same thing with Elon, and he's really good at it. This guy is a pro. Well, I don't know if you heard. Okay, this is a sentence you will never read in the news. a sentence you will never read in the news. Cook reveals internal discussions regarding pictures of Don Jr.'s penis. You will never read that headline. Apple and Tim Cook would never engage in that type of weirdness.

I mean— Yes, we'll get to that in a second. Anyways, I'm sorry. But talk about this in particular. He's being very deft in terms of how he handles. He's got big problems around China and the App Store and things like that. No question. Let's not dismiss those as not critical pressure, but he's handling it in the way that a professional CEO does. I love the term fiduciary, and that is, I am here representing other people's interests. And also grace. Now they're moving out of China into Vietnam and India?

Well, even just taking the iPod and making it a button, an app on the iPhone, doubling down on the iPhone. The AirPods don't get the recognition they deserve. They just make very good, very big decisions. But also, he's not afraid to take a punch. He doesn't feel like he needs to counterpunch and clap back all the time. He is willing. He shows a certain level of decorum. And more than anything, he gets that it's not about me. It's about stakeholders, shareholders, employees, the commonwealth. And I am here to represent other people's interests. Anyways, if I'm invited to the White House, I will go and I will be polite.

He reeks of a certain class and responsible. I'm sure I'd love to see the thought bubble over his head when he's meeting with Jim Jordan, but he certainly will be cordial. He will treat him with respect. Invite him to the spaceship. Representative Jordan, would you like to see what we're working on? Anyways. Yep, yep, yep. He's an impressive man. They're still going to face pressure with this app store.

I think the problem is the people representing the side of we need to do something about it are horses' asses. But they're right in terms of some of it that's got to be more transparent, etc. And we'll talk about that in a second. But I think it's really important that he's behaving correctly for Apple shareholders and employees and tech in general, tech in general, so that it doesn't become this ridiculous scream fest. And he's a calmer downer as opposed to others who are- That's what men do. That's what real men do. We have this terrible mythology or lie that men escalate and antagonize and fight. Real men, real men de-escalate. That's the whole point.

They use their strength. I was at a, I was talking about the douchiest douches in douchville. I was in Nantucket at a bar and two guys were drunk and they started having words. douche isn't doucheville. I was in Nantucket at a bar and two guys were drunk and they started having words. And I knew kind of tangentially the one guy and I tried to just like distract him. And then this other enormously buff guy just kind of came up in between the two of them and made some jokes and separated them and handled it with such aplomb. And I went up to him, I'm like, we need more men like you. I mean, this guy, this guy, this guy could have killed everyone in the bar, but instead he used his physical strength to come

in and deescalate the situation. Yeah, I love that. You know, I was just thinking that about my son, Louie, and he's always doing that. He's always trying to calm everybody down. I was thinking, I didn't do this as a parent, but boy, is it a great quality in a man. Well, you learn about it in relationships too. And I think there's a learning here and I'm going Esther Perel, but as a young man, when someone, a spouse or a girlfriend got in my face about something, I reared up, gathered my thoughts and got back in their face. And then when you realize that one of the keys to a healthy relationship is you want to acknowledge the problem and you want to err on saying you're right. Just the fact that you're upset means there's some veracity to what you're saying and then focus on what you can do and de-escalate the situation. Yep.

In any case, we have to get on to our first big stories. It's been said one day all politics will be about content moderation. This week brought us one step closer to that reality. On Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi released a batch of internal Twitter emails, dubbed the Twitter files. He did it all on, he didn't really release it. He put them on, they're very confusing. The emails came from 2020 when Twitter executives decided to block a New York Post story

about Hunter Biden's laptop at the time. The company said the story violated the policy about publishing hacked materials. Taibbi's post showed internal debate over the decision and the rationale. It seemed rather exactly what Yoel Roth told me in an interview earlier in the week. Elon Musk seemed to have given them to him, obviously. He said we a lot in his things. He promoted the post, teased them before, said they were going to be hot. And the reveal was a flop. Even right-wingers like Sebastian Gorka called it deeply underwhelming. It was less than that. It showed actually thoughtful people disagreeing and trying to figure things out and making mistakes. Anyway, what I saw was nothing. They still haven't released other things.

I don't know what they thought these emails would show. Um, I don't know what to say about them. They were just, they were a nothing burger, which got Musk mad and said that the media should be shamed for calling them a nothing burger, but that's precisely what they are. And they made serious allegations about First Amendment violations that weren't there. And one of the funnier parts was the penis situation with Hunter Biden, which was several requests involved taking down nude photos of his junk that were posted without his consent. And I feel like that was a good decision. They asked me to get involved. And I said, well, I'll help you on the hard parts. I knew you'd love this story. First off, is it fair to call Matt Taibbi a journalist?

I mean, was he really? He was. Okay. But I mean, people occasionally introduce me as a journalist because of what we do here. And I say, I'm not a journalist. Journalist fact check. Journalists feel an obligation to hear both sides and try and call balls and strikes. I don't think this guy was calling balls and strikes here. I think he was acting as the public relations comms person for the wealthiest man in the world. And Jessica Yellen, who I adore, for the wealthiest man in the world. And Jessica Yellen, who I adore, summarized it perfectly. She has this kind of news service called News Not Noise, and she put in big, bold letters,

noise. Released Twitter emails show how employees debated how to handle 2020 New York Post Hunter Biden story. And she writes, also not a thing. Musk hyped the release of internal communications, exposing the identity of former Twitter employees, claiming it showed interference to suppress a story about Hunter Biden. But the leaked info doesn't show that. And Musk hyping this is another creepy use of the platform to stoke conspiracy theories and drive partisan outrage. I think that perfectly summarizes what happened there. Yeah. You know, it was interesting in the emails, Congressman Ro Khanna actually contacted Twitter and said, he shouldn't do this. He's quite left, you know, I mean, he would be the liberal wing of the liberal party of the Democratic Party. And he thought it was a bad idea to take it down, let it flow, that kind of thing at the time. And that's what happened. Twitter made a mistake, Jack Dorsey. And what I liked about it was seeing the debate.

Actually, I was sort of heartened that there was a lot of debate internally. And they made a wrong decision, and then they changed it. And then in Congress, Jack Dorsey said it was a mistake. It was a total mistake. And that Ro Khanna was writing at the time in real time saying, you shouldn't, you know, there was no need to take it down. And Yoel Roth told me it was a mistake. Ultimately, for me, it didn't reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content

from Twitter. Everything about it looked like a hack and leak and smelled like a hack and leak. You did not want to do that. But it didn't get there for me. He actually did not want to take it down. So I was sort of heartened. It made Twitter look kind of good. I don't know. They made a mistake and they fixed it. The story here isn't what happened or didn't happen. It's kind of like internal communications porn. It's titillating to watch the sausage being made. It's the fact that Elon Musk has gone full partisan and has now weaponized his platform for right-leaning viewpoint. He didn't

release internal communications on the discussions they had around kicking Trump off the platform. Yeah, no, he didn't. He noticed that. The actual debate here in the conversation is interesting, but it's a nothing burger. What's interesting here is that Elon Musk has gone red pill and has decided that I'm going to weaponize and go after, make Democrats and the president look bad as opposed to, I mean, this is just unprecedented. We've never had a media person. Well, and also the penis. They didn't check the penis thing. They didn't check the, they should always check the penis thing.

It was crazy. Real reporters checked, real people checked, and it was like, oh, they were asking to take down non-consensual pictures of his ding dong. I can't believe Republicans are defending that. That's like. I don't know. I think the big takeaway here is it confirms something I've always thought. I would love to party and roll with Hunter Biden. I just think that would make for an

awesome weekend. I feel sad. Interestingly, at the same time, he had to content moderate Elon on Friday. Twitter suspended the artist formerly known as Kanye West after he tweeted an image of a swastika inside of a starved David. But I don't think that's what got him suspended, because that got him an eight, 12-hour suspension. He then posted a picture of Elon looking fat, that famous fat picture, with Ari Emanuel. And that's when he got thrown off. It was weird, because I retweeted it in a way saying, this isn't how decisions should be made. And I got blocked by Elon immediately within minutes of putting that up. So they're obviously paying attention to that picture.

I don't want to, but I mean, this was someone that we knew was going to misbehave online. They let him on. And then, you know, he said something like, fuck around and find out. Like, we already knew he fucks around. We already found out. But we keep giving these people extra chances. Are we talking about Yee or Hunter? Who are we talking about?

Yee. Yee. And? Who are we talking about here? Yee. Yee. And Hunter, too. I can't figure out. This is what I don't like about it. It's like, okay, we need to extinguish anti-Semitism and stop using both-side-ism around, quote-unquote, mental illness. The majority of mentally ill people, mental illness does an over-index around bigotry versus mentally healthy people.

So these people don't have an excuse because they're, quote, unquote, the mental illness. At the same time, all this did was bring oxygen to another vile human being and bring him a lot of YouTube traffic because it was on the YouTube channel of another vile person. And I wonder, I don't know if our outrage or talking about it does more harm than good. I'm struggling, Kara. I'm struggling. You're struggling. Well, here's the thing. How do you deal with this?

Because he's essentially making decisions on the fly. He had a text from Elon telling he'd gone too far. He can't do this. This is like insane. It's gotta be, they're gonna try to lean into automation to help moderation. Obviously, it's harder. And the real story, of course, is it's missing its weekly ad revenue targets like a lot. That's really the actual story. What the fuck are you spending your time, said every Tesla shareholder ever. What are you doing? What are you doing getting involved in this bullshit?

Yeah. This is the problem. They're going to get sucked down these things. Ye was the subject, as you said, of another moderation decision on YouTube. The network's removing clips of an interview between Kanye and Alex Jones, which the artist said he loves Hitler and Nazis. Alex Jones and Infowars have been banned from YouTube since 2018. He, of course, isn't buying Parler, which we, can we just say, we predicted, or me in particular, predicted that he wasn't going to be buying Parler. Meanwhile, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says his company will not remove an anti-Semitic film promoted by Kyrie Irving. Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League called on Amazon to add a disclaimer to the film, calling it, quote, the bare minimum.

I mean, this is they cannot artisanally figure this stuff out. Well, I think it's the problem when you have I mean, it's so important that artists and creativity are given some such a wide berth to say. That's correct. Aggressive and at the time, maybe inappropriate things. I think Netflix was right to leave Dave Chappelle up. That's correct. giving an apology in Mandarin saying, I apologize for saying Taiwan was a nation. And you just end up with these types of conflicts that suppress artistry. And I mean, that's kind of suppressing free speech. We now have two, every super film, every superhero film has two versions,

the version for the world and the version for China. So, you know, it's a real issue here and it's a function of size. And when you, the more tentacles you have, the more likely real issue here and it's a function of size. And when you, the more tentacles you have, the more likely you are to have some sort of conflict or uncomfortable, you know, participant media. I met the CEO there and he's such an interesting guy. You know, they can kind of do what they want. Can Apple TV, I'm, as always, I'll bring this back to me. I've been talking to a bunch of high-profile writers and producers about a story around big tech and the personalities involved.

And it's like, okay, Apple can't do it. Apple can't distribute it. Amazon can't distribute it. So basically we're kind of down to HBO because all of these guys have such deep roots in the big tech. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting.

It is funny that Andy left it up. And of course, they'd never do a show on Elon Musk, for example, or, you know, they have all the things I think what's interesting is that each of them is making these decisions individually, and it's nearly impossible when they do it. Or they just have to take responsibility. If they decide to keep it up, suck it up and take the criticism and you're going to get it from the Jonathan Greenatt's of the world, because that's their job to say this is an anti-Semitic film. I think you have to give a wide berth to a lot of these things, including Chappelle. I just didn't think Chappelle was funny, as opposed to Mike Birbiglia. And it was a disservice to his talent.

Yeah, that's fine. Don't watch it. That's your right. In that case, leave it up. And I think what they have is, there's another film about to make a controversy at Netflix of Palestinians and Israelis. And look, the Israelis do not look good in this thing. And there's going to be attacks on that coming up internally from the company. what, you just have to say, this is what I'm going to do. Someone else can make a different decision, but they're going to have to be doing this over and over and over again. And in proving it is Elon Musk having to take down Kanye. If he really stuck to his gums, he would have let him do it because there's lots of pictures of swastikas online. It's just hard to do individually to figure this out or admit that that's exactly what you're doing. You're not a free speech

absolutist. You're a, I will make the decisions here. And that exactly what you're doing. You're not a free speech absolutist. You're a, I will make the decisions here. And that's what we're doing. But what is appropriate, what is not appropriate, any fidelity to free speech or the First Amendment, any attempt to develop a systemic construct that can be scaled across the millions of decisions they're gonna have to make around this is totally moot.

He doesn't care. It's how can I be in the news and the headline today? Because it's been 72 hours. It's just. But I do think, I do think other companies do struggle with this. Netflix, I do think Amazon,

like what books should it have? Should it have weapon books on there? Should it? It's really, you know, with everything out there, you have to be making these decisions in real time. And again, just like with Twitter,

bringing it back to it, sometimes you make a mistake. Then you put it back up. Where I'm going is that the conversations they're having at Netflix and at Amazon or, you know, Marvel, those are honest conversations. They're really trying to figure out a way to thread the needle here, given shareholder interest, given, you know, concerns around free speech and giving in to an autocrat. It's not an honest conversation at Twitter. concerns around free speech and giving in to an autocrat. It's not an honest conversation at Twitter. The actual concept, the actual construct, the actual fidelity to the concept is meaningless to Elon. It's like, how can I be in the news today? That's what drives everything. That's

the tail wagging the dog here. There's no logic to it. There's no order. He should have celebrated those emails because it showed mistakes were made and they fixed it. Like that, to me, is the way it should work. I don't know. I don't not expect mistakes, by the way. And I don't know what I would do if I was Andy Jassy on this anti-Semitic film. I probably would have to say, you know what, we're not going to do that. And you also have to resist people like Greenblatt, who, again, it's his job to do this, right? Or not resist him and

say, I've decided he's changed my mind and I'm going to take it down. You can go get it somewhere else. It's less of a threat on Amazon. If Amazon, I think Amazon and a different artistry portrays people in negative lights, it sometimes is bigoted. And I think that should be allowed. Where it gets dangerous is when you put that content on Facebook or Twitter and the algorithms go, this outrages people, so we're going to give it more sunlight than it would get on its own. So I don't, it's, like, it kind of comes back to the same thing. A hallmark of a free society is that you can pretty much say anything about anyone to anyone. And I am on the side of, okay, we're going to put it up,

but they shouldn't be recommending it because it pisses people off. It shouldn't be on the front screen, the home screen, because it causes controversy. Yeah, they just minimize it. Minimize it. I mean, you know, I had an interesting text back and forth with Anthony Scaramucci because he was on some weird Elon thing. And I said, he's convinced he was shadow banned. And I, you know, we had a good discussion. I said, read this, this, this and this. And we had a great talk about that. I said, I think you're

you're trafficking with people who are not honest. You know, like, and you need to think about like, is there proof of this? Has it happened? And I was like, and all this, all these emails show, no, it doesn't happen like this. But the problem is once you get believe in a conspiracy theory, you have to live that conspiracy theory all the way to the end. You really do. And you get trapped in it. And so the only thing you can say is, oh, I was wrong. And that is impossible in a conspiracy theory minded thing. Anyway, it's an interesting thing. There's going to be more of it. And these people did not think they were going to have to do this, and nor are they qualified to do so. Anyway, we'll go on

a quick break. When we come back, we'll hear a lesson from Professor Galloway about leadership. Maybe they can take some tips from you. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Maria Ressa, about the free press, dictatorships, and social media. She knows a thing or two about moderation. social media, she knows a thing or two about moderation. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

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Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Okay, Scott, we're back. We're going to do a little something different today.

We should do this more often. We're going to hear a lesson from our favorite professor, Scott Galloway, to set the stage here. You've been thinking about corporate decision-making like we just talked about, especially in light of the chaos of Twitter, but elsewhere, all over the place. Tim Cook, YouTube, everywhere, where Elon seems to be making big decisions according to Twitter polls, for example. So I want you to talk to us about the best way for business leaders to make decisions and which stakeholders should they prioritize. Take it away, Professor Gollum. I don't know if it's the best way, but it's my way. And over the last 20 years, I have advised personally either the CEO or the CMO of 31 of the 100 largest consumer companies's my way. And over the last 20 years, I have advised personally either the CEO or the CMO of 31 of the 100 largest consumer companies in the world. And I say that because I'm desperate

for other people's affirmation. But anyways. I was just thinking, I talk to smart people. When the SVP or the CMO wants you to do something, it's kind of an omnibus, large macro decision. Should we be opening our own stores? Can you do an audit of our channel strategy? Or what should our social strategy? Big, hairy questions that require a lot of thinking. You come back in and you do a two-hour presentation. When the CEO would call me into his office, and it was always a him, occasionally, not always, most of the time it was a him, it would be about a specific thing along the lines of, I'm thinking of doing this. What do you think? I'm thinking of acquiring this company, or we're thinking of making a statement around Charlottesville or making a statement around this. And you have two things. You have your gut. But what I would say is let's

create a construct for how we make this decision in a more thoughtful way that will at least inform our gut. You don't have to listen to it, but how do you distill decisions down to something more quantitative? And I'll use two examples. The first is Nike's decision to come out and actively politicize Nike, which they did when they endorsed Colin Kaepernick. In the midst of the movement where he was taking a knee, a lot of people, fairly or unfairly, said, look, this is a guy who's blessed to be in America. He's making millions of dollars a year, and he has weaponized the national anthem, and it's totally inappropriate. Now, I don't agree with that, but I can understand the argument. So, at the time, for Nike to kind of give him a bear hug was a risk, or at least perceived as a risk. And this is how you break it down. You immediately

segment their stakeholders and decide what is the level of impact to the positive or to the negative of each stakeholder and then kind of add it up and decide whether or not it's a good idea. So let's do that. And nobody outside of the United States thinks the U.S. has figured out race relations. The majority of the biggest markets look at the U.S. and think on race relations, we're kind of screwed up, that that is one of our Achilles heel, that we don't drape ourselves in glory there. Internally, the third of Nike's business that comes from the domestic market in the United States, two-thirds of it is people under the age of 30. And a large portion of the bulk of that business is from people of color. So, when you really nail down or you go to, okay, some people are going to like this decision and see it as leadership and endorse it and feel good about it. And other people, it's going to upset and they're going to think less of the Nike brand. But when you talk about the latter, when you take the two-thirds out of international, when you take the consumer base that is the U.S., you're really mathematically talking about probably 3% to 5% of Nike's revenue base is in the blast zone where they will think

less of the brand. They're generally red state. They don't buy Nikes. Over the age of 35, that video showing that individual burning their Nikes, I joke that that person had to go out and buy their first pair of Nikes. So this was, on a risk-adjusted basis, a really smart move because it pulsed and reinforced the brand as demonstrating leadership qualities. It strengthened the brand among a constituency that makes up the lion's share of their revenue. Good idea, huge upside, not a lot of downside. They're perceived as being a leader despite the fact they really weren't taking much risk. So not only was it the right thing to do, people would argue, it was a smart thing to do. Now let's go to Twitter.

Musk has politicized Twitter towards the GOP. Just as Nike went more progressive, Musk has gone much more conservative, much more GOP. Now, let's talk about the business. Let's segment it, right? 38% of their buyers identify as Democrats, 30% Republican, 32% Independent or other. So Tesla owners actually lean a little bit left. You could, if you had to describe them, they would be center left. Their biggest market in the U.S. is California. So you have arguably a center left leaning group. And there was some research done by the Morning Consult, and they do a net favorability rating where they say, do you have a favorable view of the brand? And then they minus the number of people who have a not favorable view of the brand. And across all U.S. adults,

the Twitter brand has lost five and a half percentage points, the Tesla brand, six percentage points. Amongst Democrats, get this, Tesla has lost net favorability of 20.3% just in 30 days, October to November. Across Republicans, it's up 3.9%. So when you take the larger base, which is center left, and times it by 0.8, and then you add in 45% times 0.04, 4%, you end up essentially with the exact opposite of Nike. You're making a move that across your different segments is a lot of downside for the larger part of your market and pulses and pleases a less important part of your market. It is a bad decision. It is a stupid decision that, distinct of what you think of it politically, is not economic. So, let's recap. What do you want to do? You always want to take these qualitative decisions and attempt to distill

them down quantitatively. Even if it's impossible, you'll learn along the way and it'll inform your decision. You want to segment the marketplace. You want to have a sober conversation around who registers upside and downside across those different segments, how important each of those segments are to the business, and then just do a bottoms-up mathematical equation on what the net negative or positive is economically, and that will inform your decision. Nike embracing Kaepernick was, on a risk-adjusted basis, a great idea for shareholders. Twitter embracing right-leaning ideology here on a net basis is a really bad idea. Fantastic. That was really interesting. Let me ask you a couple of quick questions so we get to Maria Ressa's perfect dial-up to Maria. Is there a difference between private and public companies? Because Elon owns this privately.

Nike's a public company. The difficulties of drowning out noise seems to be the biggest problem CEOs face, leaders face now, is drowning out noise. And even I biggest problem CEOs face, leaders face now is drowning out noise. And even I'm a small leader, but sometimes I'm often telling people who work with me, just stop listening to the noise. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

I say it a lot. And I'm doing it on an intuitive basis a lot of the time because I've been there, done that. But is there a difference between public and private and understanding that much of it is noise, like you just talked about with Jessica Yellen? It's harder as a public company because every three months, every 90 days, you know you're going to get a lot of questions and you have to answer. So when In-N-Out Burger decides to put Psalms on their trays that I think a lot of people probably think I could do without that, on their trays that I think a lot of people probably think I could do without that. It would be likely that would be brought up several times on quarterly earnings calls, but they don't have to do it.

When Cartier decided to pull their name off of Lincoln's and air fresheners and go take the company, basically cancel all their licensing agreements cuz they saw it was bad for the brand. They took a huge hit over the course of four quarters. But they had that flexibility because they were a private company. They can do things in private. When Michael Dell took those huge tech companies private, he said, there's so much blood that's got to happen here in cutting. We want to do it under the auspices of closed doors. So it's harder for public companies. Now,

granted, they get a bump on valuation by being public because they bring in retail investors who are generally more tolerant of a higher valuation. So there's an upside that you get cheaper capital. But the downside is you get a scorecard every 90 days and people are in your face. It's harder to take contrary positions as a public company. I mean, that requires real leadership because people are in your face every 90 days asking you questions and asking you how, you know, your move on China has affected the numbers this quarter. You're just more subject to short-term pressures. Right, right. Or you sort of lean into those kind of things because, like, Balenciaga has had to

apologize for ads featuring BDSM teddy bears, I think, bondage bears. I had not heard that. Sometimes they try to wander into controversy for business, correct? That you want to do things like that, that mathematically it's a good thing, correct? Some could say, Elon, many of his fans say he understands he's doing this. He's keeping them in the news. He's getting people interested in him. And then he touts the numbers, for example. Does that matter?

Is noise sometimes a good thing? Yeah. I remember I was on the board of Urban Outfitters, and the family is the Republicans. They're wonderful people. They're conservatives. And when Charlottesville happened, and the CEO was very much in favor of this, we said we should come out with a public statement and just say that this type of bigotry has no place anywhere. And I said it's especially important that you say that because across your employee base and across Pennsylvania, you're known as a conservative. And so it's especially powerful when you say it.

And also the thing about a statement like that is it's highly perishable. It's the first and second people who say it that get credit. Everyone else is just seen as like, okay, it's safe now. We'll say it. But I think that stuff, everything has gone so political that now people expect their companies. And also, by the way, I think it's okay for a company to say, and we're not going to be political. People are here.

I forget who it was in tech. We had a discussion about this last year. A company basically said, look, we're here to help you develop economic security and build something great. What you do on evenings and weekends and who you support or don't support is up to you. And we're just not doing this. I would say I found that it's ignoring what your employees are talking about. Your employees are interested. I think Netflix is in the middle of that right now. They have an employee base that has opinions, and then they have a CEO who wants to make his own decisions, right? I mean, so

that's going to always cause, and they just have to live with it. That's the employee base they have. You know, this maximized shareholder value at all costs, which is sort of Friedman-esque, that's changed, obviously, over time. Who do you think the shareholders really are? They've talked about stakeholders, all this stuff. Is that just a lot of nonsense and a lot of ways people look at ESG and other things? Or is it important to think about employees, money shareholders, society in general? Is that shifted? I do think it's shifted. And I remember I was on the board of Eddie Bauer, and I was put on the board by the creditors to take it through bankruptcy. And I remember the highest bid we got was from a licensing company that was just going

to take the Eddie Bauer brand and license it out to different licensees out of China. And that meant laying off 2,000 people in Seattle. And we as a board said, we're not going to accept this bid. We're going to open bidding again and see if we can get at least the same offer from someone who will keep some or the majority of the employees here. Because when you're talking about 2,000 people, I mean, that's real pain, right? And then immediately I got a call from the hedge fund or one of the hedge funds who put me on the board, and some 26-year-old douchebag gave me a lesson on the invisible hand of economics and how I had no right to be making decisions for shareholders. So you have an active debate, but I find that generally speaking, directors are civic-minded, and it's become the transition from shareholder to stakeholder and not being lazy around just what moves the share price up is an important conversation. I find that people

are much more thoughtful around their carbon footprint. I think, unfortunately, ESG has backfired. It's like, well, who decides what is environmental and sustainable? It's turned into something that is kind of more bullshit and more jazz hands than actually doing anything. Like Southwest Airlines got some big ESG award. I'm like, they consume 2 billion gallons of gasoline. Tell me how that works. It opens yourself up to people who are critics, for sure. But I think there's been a – I do think there's been a shift.

And also, some of it is just, quite frankly, goes back to shareholder-driven because caring about your employees in an economy that's not about brands and manufacturing capability. It's about intellectual property, margins, and tech and employees where basically 80% of your SG&A is the people and the team with the best players wins. You've got to listen to your employees. Like, if you have a bad rap, glass door, I mean, it can literally bring down a company. Yep. Thank you, Professor Galloway. And now we're going to bring in our friend of Pivot. Maria Ressa is the CEO, co-founder, and president of Rappler, the top digital news site in the Philippines.

She's the winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, you may have heard of it, for her work documenting social media manipulation. She's also covered a violent anti-drug campaign by the former president, Rodrigo Duterte. She's also the author of a new book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator, The Fight for Our Future. Welcome, Maria Ressa. Hi, thanks for having me, Cara, Scott. So just so people know, Maria is a friend of mine, has become a friend of mine, but we started out because she was the one that alerted me in, I think, 2016-17 about the problems at Facebook because they weren't listening to her. So I credit with you with radicalizing me in a lot of ways, in a weird way, to what was happening to social media. So I want you to just jump right in here. Social media is supposed to be a democratizing tool. We've seen it used successfully by leaders who oppose democracy, though, Trump, Duterte, Bolsonaro. a little bit about the overall thing and what got you to notice it because you had been creating a site not unlike all things digital, but you were focusing on the anti-drug campaign and things like

that of Duterte. Talk a little bit about how you came to be this fighter for social media justice, really. Oh, my gosh. Well, first, you know, the days when it was an enabler for good are long past. I mean, Cara, you know this. You guys have been doing a lot of that reporting already. I looked at it post-Arab Spring. And then when we were watching the Arab Spring, I was like, oh my God, it's social network analysis. I came from doing counterterrorism,

terrorism network analysis of how we track the spread of a virulent ideology. So there's both the physical and then there's also the spread of the idea. And social media, social networks seemed a fantastic way to do it. And then when social media came along, it's times four. So looking at it as a force for good, that was around 2010, 2011. And then by 2013 or 2014, well, 2012, the end of 2011 to 2012 is when we set up Rappler in the Philippines, which really was just first a Facebook page. And if Facebook had had better search, we probably wouldn't even have set up a website, but thank God we did. Anyway, by 2013, it was still social media for social good. I was the truest of true believers. We began to see all these shifts happen the end of 2014,

2015. And that's when the danger signals arrived. Yeah. And you called it to me and you wrote this in the book. You said the Philippines were a canary in the coal mine of coordinated social media attacks. And you brought that to me because you were having a real problem with the Facebook people. And thank you for listening. Well, I don't think I helped you very much. But you had gone to Singapore to talk to them, the people who are on Facebook locally. And then you approached Mark Zuckerberg himself, and he made a joke. Talk a little bit about that so people can have a context of what you were trying to do. You were

warning people. I was because it was the data that we were getting was extremely alarming. And I gave that data to Facebook in August of 2016. So this is before the presidential elections. And it was, it looked like, you know, a torrent, because most Americans think about this as free speech, but it really isn't. Flipping it the other way, where free speech is like a bullet, where disinformation is a bullet, and then the gun that's being used is information operations. So what we were living through was the beginning of this. And I went to Facebook in Singapore, I said, hey, like, tell us. This is very alarming.

Can you give me more data? This is the data I have. We want to do a story. And at the very least, please give me a statement. It took a month or so. I held the story. I wrote two of the three parts of the weaponization of the Internet series. I held it because I thought it was more important to actually fix it.

This is where I was still naively thinking that they would fix it immediately. It came out in October, but in August 2016, I cracked a joke because I thought it wouldn't have happened. I said, if we don't do something about this, this is one of those things that Trump could win. And all of us around the table laughed. By 2017, this would be the F8 conference. I was sitting about a dozen startup founders that all relied on Facebook, different businesses, different industries. I was the only one from media at that table. And I asked Mark to come to the Philippines because I felt like he didn't understand the power that this platform had. And, you know, what I was coming at it for is, my God, what a tremendous power for good this could be.

So I told him, I said, at that point, 97% of Filipinos on the Internet are on Facebook. Facebook is our Internet. And everyone around the table was quiet. And, you know, Mark started frowning. And I thought, you know, was I too pushy? Because I'd asked him twice to come visit. And then he just looked at me and he said, wait, wait, Maria, where are the other 3%? Oh, no. We all laugh, but that is growth at all costs, right?

Yeah. So we have a tendency to be reductive and just talk about all the big tech. When you're dealing with Google or YouTube or Facebook or Twitter, can you stack rank who you would argue expresses or has the greatest desire to let citizenship come at the cost of shareholders or vice versa? You mean who puts company above over country? That's Mark Zuckerberg, right? I mean, so of the plot of these technology companies, Facebook had the most impact on the Philippines. So every little thing they did, every shift we could feel, you know, it was like we could feel immediately. And I would watch all of the data because I run, at that point,

we were the largest online, you know, news site. And so it was, I think that was one. The second is YouTube. YouTube was, is in many ways has gone below the radar screen because while it's posted on YouTube, it's also the second largest search engine. And in the Philippines, starting in 2013, even though we had dismal speeds, Filipinos uploaded and downloaded the most number of videos on YouTube. Twitter was very, you know, only, I think when we began Rappler, only 7% of Filipinos were on Twitter. Right now it's roughly 63%. TikTok is gaining ground. And TikTok is scary, actually, of all the platforms. Because if I think of Facebook as kind of like a blunt mallet, I think of TikTok as a surgical probe. But in addition to impact, when you walk into an office and you get a meeting with the CEO of these firms and you can show data that there's some real damage happening on their platform, who do you expect to take it most seriously and who do you expect most consistently to just delay and obfuscate?

I'm asking you, I mean, again, we tend to group them all and assume that they're all the same people and they're not. They have a different approach. What's been your experience with each of those firms? assume that they're all the same people, and they're not. They have a different approach. What's been your experience with each of those firms? Well, so let me first say that we remain partners with all of these platforms. But as I began to write the book, as I began to become more disillusioned, I've actually pulled myself out of Rappler's day-to-day in terms of editorial and operations. So I haven't dealt with them in terms of day-to-day operations, because I think the

problem is far more systemic. I don't want to argue for just what will make Rappler better. I want them to fix the systemic problems that are there. And of all of them, I mean, let's, part of it is because this is my 36th year as a journalist. And so even at the beginning, when they were all beginning to set up their offices in Southeast Asia and in Manila, I could talk to people. I could talk to the heads of each of these groups. They would all listen. But I was never certain in terms of comprehension. Would it be run up the flagpole?

I believe so. And there were people I could trust in each one of these groups. I think they can see the harms. And I think inevitably, almost all of them will come back with, you know, we can only do so much. You know, it has to be all throughout. I mean, Cara, you know this, right? Yeah, I do. Let me say a particular thing in the book.

You talked about the Google report on problems and that it got suppressed or they just didn't publish it. Jigsaw. Talk about that. Jigsaw, at Jigsaw. There was this great researcher who was, they give them a lot of money to do research. And I know a lot of researchers at all these places and they're all vaguely depressed, I would say, if I would talk to them. Yeah, yeah. Imagine if we could actually get all of that data and then be able to help.

Well, in this one, this is Camille Francois. She was the lead researcher for Jigsaw. This was early, the end of 2016, 2017. She had gathered together about a dozen researchers all around the world. And the draft, by August 2017, there was a draft of global reach, including for the first time, draft of like global reach, including for the first time, the first time I saw gender, gender disinformation that women and marginalized LGBTQ that if you're marginalized in the real world, you get further marginalized because of the way the code works, right? So it was the first time I saw that, but I also saw it broken down in four different ways. If that report had been

published at that time, I am certain because of the people involved in it, and because it was Jigsaw, the think tank of Google, right, it would have had tremendous impact for good. I think the warning signals would have gone up much earlier. But instead, you know, by I think, October, I came to New York to the Jigsaw offices and, and I had lunch. This is what I wrote in the book. I had lunch with Camille and Camille said, oh, you know, we're not going to publish it as a whole, but each one of you can publish your own, what you've written. That doesn't help, right? Because you don't have the big picture. It's exactly what tech does. It

atomizes to meaninglessness. So, you know, it didn't surprise me that a few months later, Camille left Jigsaw. I mean, again, having said that, I still work with Jigsaw. I never did get a clear reason why the report wasn't published, but it's these things. Because it's bad for business. Well, I mean, what's bad for business if they continue this? They wreck the environment we live in. Well, I suppose this is like climate change, right? Yeah, right, right, yeah. The U.S. has a special relationship with the Philippines. We have bilateral defense agreements. I mean, we're inextricably linked to the Philippines from a defense standpoint. Do you think the government has an obligation to play more of a role in these types of issues than they might with other Southeastern Asian nations? I think the U.S. government has

to play a role. In some ways, like the technology companies, it also abdicated responsibility for these American tech companies, right? I mean, now it's not just the American tech companies, TikTok and China are moving in and moving in faster than the growth of these original companies. But, you know, the kinds of problems that these companies created because the government, the US government failed to regulate them. And this sounds, you know, people say, you know, to regulate them. And this sounds, you know, people say, you know, well, it is free speech. It's not free speech. This is free speech used to stifle free speech. This is a platform that prioritizes, all of them, social media, prioritizes the spread of lies, things that will keep you scrolling. You both know this, right? But think about the upside down incentive structure that

creates for everything, including the shifts in values, the shifts in the way you look at the world, the way you act. January 6 is a natural extension of this kind of upside down. I mean, I enough? Absolutely not. The EU is stepping in, but it's very late, very late for countries like mine. We have elected Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the only son and namesake of the former dictator who was ousted 36 years earlier in a people power revolt that sparked democracy movements in other parts of the world. So we're here because of this. In terms of the special relationship you talk about though, Scott, what the Philippines and the United States, you know, the Philippines is America's former colony. We were under Spanish colonial rule for 300 years. I mean, our one sentence history is we spent 300 years in a convent and 50 years in Hollywood. So, you know, this is a country that has had a long relationship with the United States. It is also extremely strategic because of the South China Sea, what the Filipinos call West Philippine Sea. And with China, we, the Philippines, play a huge role. So I think the United States has, as it is lost in looking at what is happening only through political lenses, the politics of it

is the end of the cascading failures. That's the impact. They need to go up to look at data privacy, to look at the tech and the data and regulate that just like a better business bureau for our minds, for our emotions. Which they don't tend to want to do. So one of the things the publishers that had been cozying up to these companies, including your own, to get traffic. That was what they said. They're also facing a declining business model. How is Rappler handling the business challengers? What now, though? Someone was asking, where do you go now?

How do you then create a business model for journalism that pushes back? Because a lot of these platforms have been co-opted by, you know, whoever, whether it's Bongbong Marcos or Duterte or anyone or Elon Musk. They've been co-opted completely. You're talking about either state capture or, you know, like. Rich person capture.

Right. But let's be really clear that the old world advertising that we used to do is very, very different from micro-targeting, which is what the tech companies do. I mean, of course, all of that is seeping into the media. Look, what we did in Rappler, and in a strange way, I guess President Duterte actually forced us to find an alternative sustainable business model. What we did was when the government tried to shut us down in January 2018, we dropped within four months, 49% of our advertising revenues. And the government's war of attrition would have succeeded if we didn't find another way. And so for two weeks, all of us in Rappler, the core managers came together and we were looking at everything we were doing. And we said, you know, what are we doing that others, that these advertisers were too scared to advertise? We were like kryptonite, right?

We were doing good journalism, but no one processing to find the messages, the metanarratives that are seeded, and then doing network analysis to find which networks continue to spread them. I started looking at them like recidivist networks. And we created, we spun off, we created a sustainable business model using data and tech. And it was, I guess, news was the loss leader for this, right? Is that something every news organization can do? Not yet. I think we're in creative destruction. It is part of the reason I co-chaired the International Fund for Public Interest Media.

This was before the Nobel. Mark Thompson was the former president of The New York Times. You know, we are trying, we have raised significant amounts of money from governments that are democratic, ODA, Overseas Development Assistance Funds, to try to help journalists, news organizations stay independent at this extremely critical moment. You know, you won the Nobel Prize, you know, and you came out in this book. Also, you've done a lot of stuff. You've gotten a lot of attention.

Where are you now? What risk are you under? Has that helped protect you? Could you still go to prison? And how do you look at your life now? Because this has sort of upended your entire personal life, too. Yes, all of the above. I mean, it feels like quicksand, you know, and every step you take, you just test the ground and you keep moving forward. I can't plan my life. My parents are aging and I'm trying to figure out. Yes, you know, and then in terms of, I think in terms of myself, I've known who I am. And I think part of the reason I just have greater clarity, right? Because this is the battle that matters if we don't have facts. And I distill it that clearly. If we don't have facts, we have no shared reality. You cannot come together as a society and

democracy. Well, that's just one of the things that dies, but a lot of things die. We elevate, we allow. The last chapter is called Why Fascism is Winning. And then the kind of micro lesson I put underneath it is as what we need to do right now, which is in the interim, right? Because in the long term, it's going to be education, which is going to take too long. It's generational. In the medium term, it's going to be legislation. And this should have already been put in place. So the EU will kick in in 2023. But in the short term, we are in as much like hand to hand combat as Russia and Ukraine. And yet Americans don't feel that Filipinos don't feel that every person on social media is being insidiously manipulated, and we're

affected at three different levels. So I feel like this moment, that's the reason I wrote the book, you know, it was like, um, yeah, and I woke up every day at 5am for a year and a half to do it. Good for you. I'm really bad. Are you, could you still go to jail under bonbon? Of course. Yes. I try not to think about it, but yes, you know, look, I, I laugh about it because there's no other way to handle it. I'm not going to change because obviously like the end goal is to hang this damocles sword over us to prevent us from doing our jobs. But look, we found a sustainable business model. Crisis is opportunity. So I'm hoping we'll see. Maria, you are the most optimistic person I've ever met, even with the prison sentence and everything else hanging above your head, I have to say. Sure. You talk about such serious sort of heavy, even upsetting things.

And you got on this call, and you were waving at us. You just have the nicest vibe. Like, you're a lesson in being a beacon of light and darkness. So I don't know what you're on, but please share. Coffee. Coffee, coffee. Let me just say, at the book party, someone said, even without all that she faces, she's the happiest person we've ever met. And you were really a hero to me and many, many others.

It's infectious. Thank you. It's really nice. We really appreciate it. So the book is How to Stand Up to a Dictator, The Fight for Our Future, Nobel Prize winner, hero, coffee drinker. You can buy the book now. You can also read, please read, Rappler.com. Maria, thank you for introducing yourself to me almost 10 years ago.

You came to me for advice, but you certainly lead the way now. Thank you very much. Thanks for your important work, Maria. Thank you to both of you for your work. Thank you. Scott, isn't she the best? Yeah, it's just you meet people like that and you're thankful, right? And you stop belly the fuck aching.

Yeah, 100%. You know what I mean? Like, honestly. I mean, what could happen to her? She is under siege constantly. She could get off that plane in Manila and be arrested. And killed. I almost was like, please come back.

You can live at my house because I was worried about her getting killed by these. These people were murderers, were stone cold murderers that were running the country. And even now, they've gotten so upset at her. They've created a persona around her that from the Philippines saying it's crazy. Anyway, one more quick break and we'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'm going to go first. Do you mind? Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'm going to go first. Do you mind? My fail is Brittany Greiner, who has been relocated to a penal colony in Mordovia, about 210 miles east of Moscow. But what do they do?

You're advising Biden. What do you do? What do you do? I know. I don't know what to do, but I feel like the attention needs to be on her more heavily. I agree. They've been trying to trade her for some arms dealer. There's another guy there.

Paul Whelan is another prisoner. Yeah, CIA analyst. There's several people there that need to come out. But getting sucked up into this Ukraine thing, there was a big story in Los Angeles Times about what her life's going to be like. It's 24-hour working. She obviously stands out. She's gay. But she's facing some really tough winter there

where she is. And I just think that's going to fail. I don't know what they do, but getting her home should be a priority. I know these prisoner things don't matter, but they matter in a lot of ways. But I do think Secretary Blinken was on Face the Nation. I think they are. I think they really are. She think they really are. She is top of mind. Yeah. But they want to make sure they don't do something that results in more people being taken. Yep.

And then the win, I'll talk to her. I hope she, I pray for her, honestly. I don't really pray very much. And my win, of course, is my Chevy Bolt, which I love. It's so beautiful. You mean your name, Chevy Bolt? She says it's like a little jewel. It's such a good car. It drives, it's beautiful It's so beautiful. You mean your name, Chevy Belt? She says it's like a little jewel. It's such a good car.

It drives, it's beautiful. Everything is beautiful. Every piece is, I don't have one complaint about it. You have almost no credibility here. No, I'm telling you, go read the reviews, my friend. It's so beautiful. I'm so happy. My little boner killer.

I'm happy you're happy. My boner killer is my favorite. That was the rage on Twitter. I know it was. Oh my gosh. I'm like, wait, I'm the profane one. Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane.

That's what you named it. That's what you named it. I just named it what you named it. I wonder what they're doing right now at Chevy when they see that name coming in. Yeah, something tells me Chevy's not going to be advertised. Who knows? Maybe. Cara and her boner killer.

She loves it. Anyway, I love it. So good. Well done, GM, I have to say. It's her boner killer. She loves it. Anyway, I love it. So good. Well done, GM. I have to say it's a really good car. There's really interesting. Ford and GM are really owning the lesser expensive cars in EVs. And obviously, Tesla dominates the luxury area.

But the others, Rivian and Lucid, are coming up as well as Mercedes and stuff like that. But these inexpensive EVs are great. I'm really pleased that such a good one is available. Anyway, go ahead, Scott. Win and fail. My win is I'm surprisingly optimistic. I think there's been some good things. Sort of power to the people is my win.

A senior Iranian official said the country had abolished its morality police after months of street protests. Ian Bremmer would argue that it was mostly symbolic, but still, symbolism matters. In China, after nationwide protests, Chinese officials have started to ease COVID restrictions. More than 20 cities eliminated the requirement for negative COVID tests on public transport. And I'm not saying whether that's a good or a bad idea, but you are seeing the power of protest. And I think that's a reason for optimism. My fail is I just can't get over how the crypto Taliban and the VC community have attempted to pull this jujitsu move and claim that, oh, the media and journalists and politicians were protecting Sam Bankman Freed. And that had they not been actively protecting him, we would have found this out sooner.

And here's the truth. It's these sycophants that were protecting him. They were. And they try and position it as some sort of deep state thing that Gary Gensler was somehow involved and that he was giving money to Democrats. He gave money to Democrats and Republicans. Gensler was a critic. And these tech bros, if they're not writing love letters from Sequoia about how he represents the new breed of entrepreneur they want to back.

If Cathie Wood wasn't saying that Bitcoin is going to be at a million dollars. That's the price target she's put on it for 2030. If the crypto Taliban hadn't gone after everyone that wanted to have a conversation around maybe there's danger in Mudville here, if we'd had some harder questions from these people who are all claiming to be geniuses now, you need a board, you shouldn't be in Bahamas. Well, you know what? Where the fuck were you other than giving this guy money and telling government and institutions to just stay out of the way? And then this shit happens and they're like, where were the regulators? It's like you spend all your time trying to emasculate and defenestrate regulators, and now all of a sudden you've decided it's their fault. So it was the venture capital community and the crypto Taliban on Twitter that was protecting this guy. Not the media, not regulators, not politicians.

And they need to take responsibility for some of this. Agreed. They just always do trying to find someone's fault. That's what they're like. That's what they're like. That's what they're like. I think you're right. I agree.

Good for you. That's a good rant. I can't believe you didn't mention soccer the whole time. Anyway, don't. Oh, my God. England flying crats. England won. England won.

Whatever. And before we go, a nurse who is a friend of our staff made us aware of a patient and father who are big Pivot fans, specifically mine, I might add, Scott. So we want to give them a shout out. We're sending recovery wishes your way. Stay well, be well. And as Mike Birbiglia says, take care. Anyway, we want to say I know something. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show. Call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more.

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Enjotot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Saverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Go Sokka, go England.