Pivot - The Twitter Whistleblower, A Potential Saudi Vice Deal, and Guest Mark Bergen

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Kara and Scott are back to discuss the demise of a journalism antitrust bill, as well as a potential deal between Vice and a Saudi media giant. Also, Twitter says payments to a whistleblower shouldn't affect its deal with Elon Musk. Then, Friend of Pivot Mark Bergen chats about his new book, “Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination.” Plus, Scott was on Bill Maher! You can read the statement we mentioned from Little People of America here. Mark Bergen is on Twitter at @mhbergen. 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. Well, welcome back again, Scott. Fresh off your appearance on Bill Maher, no less. Let's play a clip of your glorious return to that show. If you believe, as I do, that there is no separation between the CCP and a Chinese company who can disappear as CEO for four weeks. If you believe that the CCP has a vested interest. You're talking about the Communist Party in China. Okay.

And if you believe the CCP has a vested interest in diminishing our standing globally, and then you also acknowledge that people under the age of 18 are spending more time on TikTok than they're spending on every streaming network combined. Are we comfortable? Are we down with an organization that wants to undermine America controlling the media our children see? It should be banned full stop. Whoa. Wow. You said this at COAT.

You talked about this in your presentation, which was great. And also several of the other people on stage agreed with you. Matthias Doepfner from Axel Springer, who we interviewed. And also, you know, a lot of the other ones seem to say that, seem to have that idea. He said outright ban, he's resisting going on TikTok. But a lot of people said the same thing, and you were quite explicit about that. So, talk a little bit about that. Well, I think, so there's sort of a bit of a Twitter kerfuffle that broke out online saying people saying you're distracting from the larger point. And how can you say this about TikTok? This is just jingoism or xenophobia.

Ah, jingoism. Yeah, I hadn't heard that in a while. That's a word in school. A Washington Post reporter said this MF, which I think means motherfucker, doesn't understand TikTok. Which one? The one that's on TikTok? I don't know. Anyway, he shouldn't be doing that.

A very aggressive person in the Washington Post thinks it's going to make them look younger. a platform that can put basically what I feel is like an electronic node or direct cable line into the brainstem of our kids under the age of 18 who are now spending more time on TikTok than every streaming network combined. And someone online correctly pointed out that there is no direct evidence that they are doing what you're accusing them of. And I want to acknowledge that point. But here's the thing. I don't want them to have the potential to do it. And it strikes me as just naive to think that the CCP, if they have this sort of inroad into an addictive substance, it's kind of what the British did to the Chinese with their opium, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think more to the point is several, you know, people who are in the U.S., TikTok, don't like this either. You know what I mean? They think, one, you have to separate the really good product from the ownership, right? 100%. That's the correct issue. You know, it's just like the Saudis owning things.

Like, I've always been a critic of Saudi investment because they're murderous thugs, you know, of Jamal Khashoggi. And I want to point that out. If you're going to take that money, be aware of whose hands you're holding, essentially. And then secondly, it's a great product. We think it's a great product. We see why it's a good product. It's a better product than a lot of products. It's better than Facebook, for sure. It's better than Twitter. It's like Snapchat. It's better than Snapchat. It's addictive. It's fantastic. And it's well done. Well done. But I think the issue is, this is the Chinese government, and I'm sorry to report, but they are a... I mean, we can talk about our authoritarianism in this country, and it exists and everything else. That's their modus operandi. Our government's looking at it. There's oracles involved. There's all kinds of things. But let's be clear, the Chinese government is a surveillance economy. And if we complain about it here, boy, wait till you go over to China and live over there. And so I think it's not jingoistic to point that out. It's not at all.

The idea that I thought Matthias had, which is Mo's, is we're resisting putting our stuff up there. He said he's not going to not do it, right? Well, I'm on it because here's the thing. And I'm also advertise my online education firm on Instagram because I'm not going to disarm unilaterally. You can't get across nuance, unfortunately, in a format like Bill Maher. But there is some nuance in between, and that is a spin of the firm, ensuring that all the data runs through strictly US servers. In Singapore, yeah. They say that it is. It has to be separated. Because the word ban is a very blunt tool. I get that. And I do think that there are a lot of people at TikTok who deserve economic upside. And usually when the idea of the government coming in and

banning something, I mean, like I said, that's a pretty blunt instrument. But anyone who has kids and people say, actually, I'm doing some research on this right now. YouTube actually commands more attention than TikTok among children. And they're like, well, why aren't you worried about YouTube? And there is something different about the effect that... So I find with my 12-year-old, he does search and destroy on YouTube. He goes, I want to see the highlights from the Bayern Munich game. I want to see a YouTube video on how to install batteries on this type of handset. He sits on his side, like he's just taken a hit of opium and he just watches it and the algorithm says, how do we take him deeper and deeper and deeper? I think literally in a 48 hour period, if they decided to weigh in and you wouldn't even know they're doing it, they could

sway elections or they could decide, you know what, we're going to have, there's another protest or protests emerging or blowing up all over the nation, as some have over the last couple of years, and we're going to inflame it among young people. Well, they could. They certainly, and they have lots of other things. Anyway, great appearance, Scott. Thank you. We have a lot to talk about, but I think you're right. I think it's something to discuss.

And calling you an MF, I'm going to find out who that is and give them a talking to. Anyway, today we'll talk about— Mamas laying in. Mamas. I see you're wearing a Washington Post t-shirt there. Do you know Democracy Dies in Darkness? Yeah, I wear—isn't that ironic? I wear Washington Post.

I love the Washington Post. Anyway, today we'll talk about the latest drama at Twitter. A kinder, softer Bob Chapik. Bob, too, has grown a beard. Why a potential vice media deal is raising eyebrows. Plus, we'll speak with Bloomberg reporter Mark Bergen, who used to work for Kara Swisher, about his new book on the rise of YouTube, speaking of YouTube. But first, let's cover these very quickly. Twitter whistleblower Peter Mudge Zatko testifies to the Senate today. Last week, we learned that Twitter paid Mudge a severance of more than $7 million

just past June, which Elon Musk is trying to make a big deal out of and saying, now the severance violates the terms of their deal and citing another reason why Elon should be law. This is ridiculous. They pay severances like this. I was like, that's not very much, actually. I remember a Google guy who was a real problem there, got $40 million. Anyway. So the most outrageous golden parachute ever was when Marissa Merritt Yahoo fired Enrique de Castro. I think I got that right. Yes, you did. She brought him over to do biz dev. He lasted 15 months, and then she had to pay out a severance worth $58 million.

By the way, the board's wet on this one. They likely approved that severance package. Yes, indeed. I wrote a lot about Enrique. I helped move him that direction. He was really not up for that job, and that was not a very good hire from her. The lawyers in must know, like, okay, we're wrong. We're all wet.

We're going to lose this case. Let's try and find any technicality possible. They're literally going to be like, they served a lunch that was too much. Hey, Elon, this is not a lot of money. And you know it. It's not a lot of severance. But I know it seems like, and I'm going to get all,

oh, Kara says $7 million is not a lot of money. No, it's not. Not in Silicon Valley for severance payments. Not in this world. And many people have gotten severance. I was surprised about how low it was compared to all the others we've written about. I've written about over the many years.

And that was even 10 years ago. They were 40, 50 million on average, pretty much for high level people like this. You know, it just didn't work out with him is what it is. And there's all kinds of noise about his bad managerial skills. And, you know, maybe it wasn't a fit, but and then now he's complaining about it at this unusual time. Again, very well regarded. Timing seems weird. Elon, this is not going to get you out of a deal. Stop making excuses. And by the way, that judge has not allowed it to go any longer till mid-October is when it happens. He can put the much things in, but she did reiterate, you signed a deal without any kind of ability to complain about things and without any due

diligence. So here you are. Anyway, while we were chatting with former Disney CEO Bob Iger at Code this past week, his successor, Bob Chapik, was getting ready for Disney's massive annual fan event, the D23 Expo near Disneyland. I had been invited by Bob too to come to that the weekend after Code, but I did not because I needed to sleep. Over the weekend, more than 100,000 fans turn up to find out about upcoming Disney movies, new theme park rides, see Disney stars. They're all there. By the way, the New York Times covered the event. Very good piece, actually, by Brooks Barnes. It was a chance for Bob, too, to, quote, rebrand himself after a difficult start.

The headline of the article by Barnes, again, read, Disney CEO pitches warmer, fuzzier side. Speaking of fuzzy, he has a beard. He seems, he's wearing regular shirts and suits. You know, he's an more

awkward person as you saw Bob Iger looks fantastic and as smooth as silk. Why do you think he has to do that?

Well, in a 24 by 7 environment where CEOs are constantly, it's the same reason why, so,

code is absolutely like, you couldn't do that any better. But the reason why I think these conferences are struggling a little bit is that you have so much access. These people are so present all the time. Everything they say is on video. Their conference calls are recorded. They're not only very accessible, but they're under constant media lights. And the embodiment of the brand, if you look at the most successful companies over the last 20 years who've managed to get cheaper capital and then use that capital to pull the future forward, they all have one thing in common, and that is they have an incredibly charismatic leader who's sort of this 3D embodiment of the brand.

And unfortunately, that charisma has become too important. And people want someone to enthrall them and excite them and be an incredible spokesperson. Yeah, they want a character. Yeah, that's 100%. And here's the thing. Bob Chapek is more kind of the old school CEO. I get the feeling he's an operator. But somebody has said to him, you know, his board, his CMO has said, you know what, boss?

It's Christina Schake, who they brought her in. She's helped Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Instagram she was at. She's quite a talented. She replaced the guy from BP who sort of screwed up the don't say gay thing. But I think she's like, start to be a person. Start to be a writer. You hate to say it, but here's the bottom line. Disney probably trades it. I don't know. It's such an incredible asset. He'll get another turn on EBITDA if they can make Bob more likable. And so it's like, okay, if we're talking about another $3 to $8 billion in market

cap, if we can just make you more likable, so you need to dress better you need to you need to you know have some talking points you need to smile more um by the way that was the feedback they gave me my segment producer gave me on bill maher they're like can you smile more yeah you need to smile i think you should smile more her and actually sit up scott you need to sit up more yeah and there we go oh there you have a posture you really do i was going to point that out um it's bad for you to be an old creaky man if you do that. I am. See how nicely I'm saying it?

I'm all of those things. I'm all those things. Hello, but the gun show's in town. I'm working out. See, that's what I thought. You get to show off. Hello, ladies. Hello.

Did it just get a little hot in here? Back to Chapik. Do you believe in lust at first sight or should I walk by again? Hello. Hello, ladies. And he's back. You should not be the CEO of Disney. That is my observation from that last thing.

All right. In any case, it was good that he's doing this. I'm hoping he talks to me. By the way, we're going to play my entire interview with Bob Iger, Smooth Jazz, at Code this coming Saturday. All right. First big story. We're going to get on to our first big story.

Vice Media is struggling with a new do or don't. Vice is weighing a deal with Saudi media giant MBC, which is partly owned by, guess what? The Saudi government. Everything's owned by the Saudi government. That means you're dealing, no matter what you do, with MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, who I always call Mohammed Bonsal. Right. Yeah. Vice staffers aren't happy with the potential deal, taking the issue of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, among other things. But Vice's owners may decide the deal.

There's a lot of interesting owners, including Rupert Murdoch, may decide the deal makes them more desirable as they seek buyers for the company. They've really been struggling. Now, I know you work there a little bit, but what is the Saudis doing? They have all this money now, obviously, even more given the energy crisis. Would a deal help Vice's chances of selling or hurt it?

They have deals with MGM. Oh, it would help. As I understand it. Explain why. Well, as I understand it, it's an opportunity for them to start creating content in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which would be incremental cash flows that would probably be very profitable, which would make the company worth more. So I think this would be good. The question is—

They're doing—what Scott's referring to is a multimillion-dollar music festival. They had organized one, but they had done one. Vice had done one. And this is more stuff like that. They've always been pay-to-play, that company, in terms of advertisers and stuff like that. But go ahead. pay to play that company in terms of advertisers and stuff like that. But go ahead. So I would argue that Vice, if I was on Vice's board, I would be a proponent of this deal.

And it's easy to be- Thank you, Trump golf tournament, but go ahead. Here's the thing. I think if the government wants to weigh in and impose sanctions on the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for having a leader that kills American journalists, I'm down with that, and I think they should do that. Until then, I think for-profit companies need to be thoughtful about how they compete. And if we're expecting the better angels to show up, I would respect and admire if they decided not to do that. I also think there is some doubt. Where's the line, though? What if Putin wanted to give him money? That's the hard part. I agree.

What if Putin or- I agree. But here's in the media what we will do when we're not shareholders and we're not employees and we're not trying to figure out a way for Vice to survive. So the journalists there and the people there actually have jobs. It's very easy for us to be purists. And also, I think there's something to the notion that Western media has been the greatest 24 by 7 running commercial to espouse American values and also to make America a place that everybody feels empathetic for, everyone admires, everyone aspires to, everyone wants to immigrate to. So, I do think there is a strategic interest in having American media and influence in these regions. I don't think there is a strategic interest in having American media and influence

in these regions. I don't think it affects them in any way. But I want to give you airtime here. You don't think you think I should not do it? Yes, because I'm going to, meanwhile, another American company may need to address similar questions. The Saudi government and Union of Gulf States have called for Netflix to remove content that offends Islamic values, speaking of values, or face legal consequences. This is the problem. I don't think Netflix should comply. They probably are going to have to. Well, they have a choice. They can comply or not do business there. That's right. Look what every movie theater does. Look at Top Gun. They can't even put a flag

on the enemy's planes that Tom Cruise is fighting against because they don't want to offend the Chinese because they can make a half a billion dollars in China. Right. If you're looking for moral clarity, you're not going to find it in Hollywood. No. So. I think Netflix will comply. I think they have to. Yeah, or they have to leave. I mean, that's the bottom line.

And Google had to comply, and they decided to leave. So you have a decision. But trying to say, no, it's censorship. All right, fair point. But let me just say, Vice has a lot of lecture-y stuff. Like, oh, how dare you do that? I really don't want to listen to it from them. I think you're underestimating the editors

and the journalist's advice that they would do that. No, I don't think they'll be affected by it. I just think it's, I would be uncomfortable working there with that money because I did a column a couple of years ago saying, look, you can take their money, but let's be clear what you're doing, right? Like, because I was at a dinner party where they were stack ranking different investors of who's worst.

And they were like, Singapore money is the best. Saudi money is the worst. Russian money is the very worst. Chinese money is below that. They were literally stack ranking who to take money from. And it was interesting. But just be aware of what you're doing. I would not probably, you know, work for – I mean, I do leave.

We do leave when there's things we don't agree with. And I live with the consequences. But it's problematic for people working there, I suspect. Uber. I mean, Uber's taken money from this region. You have – I mean, unless we're just going to take Canada's – Oh, Uber loves that. Unless we're going to take Canada's money.

And I think there's an argument for taking their money. And also, you know, Vice has a, and journalists there have a decision to make around whether they want to work. Do you remember Al Gore's company? I mean, Al Gore, Mr.

Mr. An Inconvenient Truth, he sold his company to the Qataris. Yes. I mean, the question is, do you totally isolate them, which in many ways makes them more dangerous? I mean, NYU has a campus in Abu Dhabi. Yes, yeah.

And I'm going to guess it cost us zero. I'm actually going to guess we made money before the thing even broke ground there. Yes, yeah, I'm sure. Because they want— Given what they offered us, I'm sure. They want great Western institutions. One, I think they want sure. They want great Western institutions. One, I think they want academia, they want great media, but they also want, as a benefit, they want to whitewash some of the

bad behavior there. But I also think there's some benefit to integration. And also, just being a capitalist, the cheaper capital we can access as American companies, the more successful our companies, the more taxes, the stronger our military. So I don't think this is an easy issue. Let's take that dirty money. No, I think one of the things is that, you know, Trump points this out. It's like, you think we're so good? I'm like, no, I don't think we're so good, but I think they're particularly bad this week. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. And they have to have some, something has to cost for what they did. And it's just too bad. If I'm looking for total fairness, you're right. The U.S. has done all kinds of unpleasant things.

But I just, it's still at its heart. In Saudi Arabia, they arrested and jailed and detained a woman who was advocating, was one of the key proponents of getting Uber there and around women driving. And then she got out just relative last year. And then they arrested another Saudi woman. She was sentenced 34 years in prison for retweeting activists through her Twitter account. So, it's really in another era. It's another age, and it's medieval. But let me ask you this. It's weird to be a defender of the kingdom here.

Yeah. Are you getting an investment from them soon? I have not. Do you think, although I'm going, and I'll get shit for this, I'm going to World Cup in Doha, just as I went to World Cup in Moscow, because I have not. Do you think, although I'm going, and I'll get shit for this, I'm going to World Cup in Doha just as I went to World Cup in Moscow because I have young boys who are football crazy and it's amazing. And now you're British, so yeah. There you go. By the way, Scotland didn't make it into the World Cup, which is hugely disappointing. I don't care. I don't care. Is the treatment of gay people, in your view, less going to, more likely or less likely to improve if we become closer to them or if we attempt to punish them by not being involved?

Where do you think we have a better outcome? I don't think they, we changed them one bit by being there. I don't think we make them more liberal, for sure. I think that's such an argument, like the same thing. You know, these anti-gay people came roaring back and everyone was like, oh, everything's changed. I'm like, no, it hasn't. They just are not talking. I think many, many types of people, especially of religions that are including some in this country, do not change.

You listen to what they say. And so, no, I don't think we help them. Okay, but there's a lot of, I mean, you can go so many layers here. There's a lot of journalists who are probably gay or people of color advice who want to make – have economic – they have a decision to make. But also, I have a tough time sometimes with us being so morally indignant when we're passing bullshit like don't say gay. Yeah, but that's one bill in Florida, and the law of the land isn't that so like we at least don't think it's a good thing and i think very few people do things anyway we're not throwing gay people off cliffs i think you just have to aspire to better and they are definitely if they wanted good faith don't beat

up on the gays if they had good faith had good faith, whatever, they're never going to. They're never going to. Just they're never going to. Okay. The best way to punish the Saudis is to have a kid born in Israel figure out a way for a Korean national living in Japan to raise $100 billion from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and then spend it all on American office space. That was, in my view, an example of how capitalism benefits us and draws 10 years of oil wealth out of the kingdom. I would agree. When they were losing all that money, Adam Neumann, I was like, yay. Right.

Good. Couldn't have happened to nicer people. That's how I felt. And by the way, a ride-sharing company or a media company somewhere in Europe or somewhere else will take that money. So I don't – anyways, easy to heckle from the cheap seats. Not heckling from the cheap seats. I don't want to do business with them.

But that's okay. You can. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we get back, some more tech regulation, and we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Mark Bergen. 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,

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Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. Some tech news out of Washington this week. The Senate journalism bill may be dead on arrival that Amy Klobuchar talked about. She thought it was going to work. She withdrew a bill that would have allowed small newspapers to collectively bargain with tech platforms to get paid for their work. Last week, Republicans led by Ted Cruz added an

amendment, said they would address potential censorship. It's the same thing that she was worried about, says the amendment undercuts news publishers. This is the Republican thing that they have to have is this whole censorship thing where they want to be punitive, the real stick on this thing. So she talked about it like it was going to pass, and then it just, she pulled it. So there you have it. Well, I'm really disappointed. I think Senator Klobuchar is fighting the good fight. And as always, Republicans bastardize or pervert this notion of free speech. They decided they didn't want newspapers to have the ability to moderate their own content, which is its own form of suppression of free speech. And here's the problem.

The best way to defeat an enemy is to atomize them. And that is what Google and big tech is doing to newspapers in the last 20 years. The number of journalists has been cut in half. The number of PR executives or comms executives at companies has gone up sixfold. So the ratio of bullshit to journalism has gone the wrong way by 12x. We just lost a journalist in Las Vegas was murdered in a very strange and upsetting situation where he wrote about corruption at a local agency. And so this guy showed up and allegedly stabbed this journalist to death.

Yeah, that was some story. Here's the shavings of shit on a shit salad there on that tragedy for him. He won't be replaced. The amount of money that's been sucked out of newspapers and the harm it's having on just local corruption. You know, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, I think there's still people covering the big stuff. When there's classified documents on nuclear codes in the golf cart room, they cover that. But when you're talking about corruption at a local level, the absolute shit-kicking that journalism has taken is enormous. And the fact that we – and I have some history here.

that journalism has taken is enormous. And the fact that we, and I have some history here. In 2008, when I went on the board of the New York Times, I thought, I'm such a genius, I know what I'm going to do. I know people at Hearst, at Condé Nast, at the FT. I'm going to get all of them to bind together at the Wall Street Journal,

and we're going to present one unified face to Microsoft, which had a viable search engine called Bing at the time, and Google. And we're going to say, one of you gets to license all of our content, and we're going to pull all of our gorgeous content off of the other one that doesn't license it, and you're going to have a sewer of bullshit content. And I thought we were going to get billions, if not tens of billions. And the first thing that happened was the lawyers of the New York Times came back to me and said, we can't do

this. We can't even be in the same room because of antitrust. Well, the New York Times would have been out of this bill. It was aimed at the smaller ones. She had done, she had made changes. She extracted the big ones. Yeah, she extracted. I mean, it's just a lot of people had a problem with this bill. There was a lot, Mike Mazik had a very good argument against it and about- What was the argument? That linking has been free. You don't get paid for linking. Like linking is good for a newspaper.

There's all kinds of arguments against it. But Ted Cruz sneaking this thing in and then winning it is just a problem. They love to blow up everything. That's what they do. They're just bomb throwers, and they are not legislators. And so, I mean, she's, as she said, was willing to do all kinds of compromises, but they liked it. They're obsessed on this idea of censorship, which is just nonsense. These amendments also help the tech companies. And he's just a piece of work. And they're doing the same thing over on the marriage bill,

the same-sex marriage legislation that Tammy Baldwin and others and Senator Collins, I think it's Senator Collins, are working on. They just want to, let's let it go back to the States. Like I said, they haven't changed. That's where they wanted it, because then half the country can be discriminatory against gay people. Same thing. They love to put these things in here. And so, you know, I'm not so sure. I did push back on her on this bill on the linking stuff. I think the issue is whether her big bill is going through, which is the antitrust bill. Josh Hawley, for example, is not supporting the bill, even though he's big on antitrust. He thinks it's too pro-trust. And it's just, let's see if she can get

one of these two bills. And I think the one she wants through is the antitrust bill, which she talked about a lot on stage. But it's really a shame that she's trying her hardest to do good legislation. As she said, she's working with everyone and she makes changes

and she's not blowing and breaking the internet. And they always manage to like shiv people like her at the last minute with this stuff. And it's always Ted Cruz holding the knife. So, anyway, he's a, what's an anti-legislator? He's useless. And he wants to be president. Republican? He wants to be, yeah. No, not all of them. Certainly not. But he, in particular, is one of the worst public servants that's ever been around, I think. I think he's just a bomb-throwing narcissist who will never be President Ted because nobody likes you.

Nobody. And I will re-quote another senator from Minnesota, Al Franken, who said, I'm the only one who— Do you want me to help you? Do you want me to help? He said, I like Ted Cruz more than most senators, and I hate Ted Cruz. That's exactly right. So did his roommate. I can see why that's happened. Anyway, we're going to move on and bring in our friend of Pivot. Mark Bergen is a reporter at Bloomberg News and the author of Like, Comment, Subscribe,

Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination. Welcome, Mark. Thanks, Cara. So there's lots of criticism on Facebook, which has gotten a lion's share in elections or Instagram's effects on mental health. I mentioned this to Sundar Pichai in an interview. YouTube often gets left out of these discussions. Talk a little bit about that. By the way, it's run by Susan Wojcicki, a longtime Google executive, been there at the very beginning. Why do you think that is? I think in part because it's situated inside Google, which is a very savvy company. It's a little bit more mature and just politically smarter than Facebook, for one. YouTube is

tucked inside Google, which is inside Alphabet. So there's a lot of, you know, every time like Sundar is dragged before Congress, it's usually about antitrust and privacy. And YouTube is tucked inside Google, which is inside Alphabet. So there's a lot of, you know, every time Sundar is dragged before Congress, it's usually about antitrust and privacy. And YouTube is farther down the list. They share just less data. We only have like the ad sales. We don't have any other financial figures. And so there's less for journalists to come over. I mean, I think we should blame myself and the industry, which has largely been covered sort of partly out of Hollywood and then partly by Google reporters that tend to cover a lot more parts of Google. And I think there's just a structural issue where YouTube, unlike Facebook, is for most people, it's a utility.

Most people have like good sort of fuzzy relationship with YouTube, especially during the pandemic, right? Like I did yoga with, I learned how to do like yoga from home or big bread or something. Very similar to TikTok in that regard. Yeah. It's not the same where you don't see your kooky uncle posting like QAnon memes on YouTube necessarily. But there's plenty of that on that service. It does exist for sure. And there are like all the trappings of social media that, and like certainly if you're younger than 25, like YouTube is like your primary television screen.

It also does degenerate really quickly. I mean, I, you know, watching my kids use it, it gets to very yicky stuff pretty quickly. And that was one argument I've had with Susan over the many years. One thing that I thought was just recalling, because I'm working on my own book, memoir, and one of the things I'll never forget is when the founders of YouTube came to one of our All Things D conferences, and they were on the same program that George Lucas was on, huge Star Wars fans. They came over to meet him. He just arrived very late for the session the next morning. And I introduced him, and he's already a gruff person in general. And I introduced him. I said, these are the founders of YouTube and they're huge fans of Star Wars, huge, like crazy

fans. And he looked at them and he said, you're ruining all of video and all of movies and all of television. He just was like, you're terrible people. And what you do is like throwing puppies on a highway. I'll never forget puppies on a highway. And he had it cold that it was degenerative and not good for art or anything else. And of course, they were like, we love Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker, whatever. And it was really a fascinating moment, I remember. And it wasn't because they were subsuming him. He had a sense of something else. So, can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I think, I mean, Viacom sued YouTube basically out of the gate after they were

bought by Google. And I think I talked to people at Viacom too, which were, they're kind of ignoring YouTube a little bit beforehand. They were more worried about, I remember Grokster was sort of like the video Napster that studios were obsessed with. And then after the seal of approval of a 1.6 billion, which was a huge eye-popping number at the time. And so that was a critical lawsuit.

It occupied so much of YouTube's time and attention. And I think a lot of their DNA is still built on this idea that they are an underdog the media industry is trying to attack. Yeah. And at the time, Viacom was like, They certainly had a lot of sloppiness. They had weird, creepy of sloppiness. They had weird, creepy videos on YouTube Kids.

Sloppiness was the same thing that was happening at Facebook. Scott? First off, Mark, you look like Elvis. Has anyone ever told you that? Oh, my God. Maybe Kara did at one point. Congratulations on the book. Everyone's talking about TikTok right now, but YouTube still commands more attention of people under the age of 18.

It's still number one. How would you describe the Google or Alphabet's approach and Susan Wojcicki's approach to trying to protect stakeholder value and young people? There's a lot of concern around meta in their approach to young people. TikTok is, I think, finally getting overdue, warranted scrutiny. How would you describe YouTube's approach to youth and their concern for the well-being? Yeah, I think, I mean, one of the themes in the book

that I try to get across is sometimes like YouTube will move, the platform itself moves in a direction that Susan often, opposite direction, she's trying to push it in and many places that she can't control. And this is one, sometimes like without YouTube, youtube the company's own doing they were able to capture

like the youth zeitgeist and i think if you go look at the most popular youtube channels right now by by traffic by volume they are like ones built for your uh children under five like cara for like their nursery rhymes right they're like i'm not putting my kids on youtube you know they are a multimillion-dollar industry. The biggest YouTuber in the world is Ryan. By, like, success, financial success is Ryan Kaji, who's, like, nine. The toy and boxing star. So, I think, certainly, like, that is, like, YouTube has, you know, built tools that make it, like, very appealing to younger audiences, even separate from the YouTube Kids app.

I do think TikTok is a viable threat in a way that they were scared of Vine. They were scared of Vessel, which was this premium video service. They were certainly scared of Facebook for a long time. They were. They were. They were. And saw themselves as an underdog, really. TikTok has successfully, well, TikTok has at least started to pay creators in a somewhat meaningful way.

I think you can argue there's a there's an argument that it's not necessarily. It's certainly not at the scale that YouTube is. And you talk to a lot of creators are like, oh, yeah, TikTok is fun. I can break out and have an audience. But like, really, you make money on YouTube. And I don't see that changing. But they are if you use a YouTube app, you know, the YouTube Shorts, which is their version of TikTok and like kind of like Instagram Reels is being shoved at you increasingly as a viewer. A lot of creators are being told, like, go hang out on Shorts.

So that's their response. You know, they're very nervous about, obviously, like everyone else losing eyeballs. But they're also very nervous that their creator class and base will move to TikTok. And in part because YouTube is just very crowded. It's hard to break through unless you have a million subscribers or like a built-in size. Let me be more specific. YouTube has been accused of being a platform for the radicalization of young men. And do you think that YouTube takes that threat seriously or spends more time trying to delay and obfuscate from those accusations? No, I mean, they're quite good at delaying

an obfuscation. And I think that's, to answer like Kara's first question, that's a major reason why they're not part of the conversation. And they, like Facebook kind of chooses to fight and YouTube just stays out of it, which is very smart in some ways. I have this in the book, which I thought was fascinating detail that they knew internally that their audience skewed pretty heavily towards men. And they were trying, had tried various ways to get a stronger female audience to like position Susan as like one of the,

she is the most prominent female CEO in the Valley and the only one running a social media company. I don't know, Kara, do you think, I don't think they necessarily succeeded in that. You know, what's really interesting, now that we're think, I don't think they necessarily succeeded in that. You know, what's really interesting, now that we're talking, I'm recalling, she had me out there to talk to her staff at one point.

And this was before it started to really radicalize, but it was clear that they were worried about some of the political content, some of the misinformation, but it was right at the, it must've been 2014, 15, whenever she took over, right when she took over. And I remember them being agonized, the people who worked there, be it must have been 2014 15 and whatever she took over right when she took over and um i remember them being agonized the people who work there they're like it used to be cat videos and fun

and now i feel like every day we are facing some very serious societal they articulated it then they were aware of the thing and then they didn't like you know they didn't do anything about it because they were so worried about competition from Facebook and everything else. Yes. And they tend to move. They move slowly. And I mean, the part I got in the book is unlike Facebook and Twitter, like Facebook and Twitter can make these changes and it impacts viewers and their advertising base. Right.

YouTube has now two million plus creators and time even more people whose livelihoods are tied to the platform. And they saw this, right? In 2018, there was a very troubled woman who was a YouTuber. Who went on a shooting spree. Yeah, who came to the campus with a gun. And so like that, I think there is, for all the normal reasons why they move slowly and they're risk averse and reluctant and they only are oppressed when it's in the, you know, there's press coverage or their advertisers actually force

them to do something. They are aware that they have ramifications that no other platform really does. And that's happened repeatedly. We had always talked about a different YouTube that was cleaner, right? One of the things that they had a hard time, she was always very interested in

Hollywood stuff, but they never really veered that way, you know, in the way that Amazon. They tried. They tried. It was YouTube Red. Many different times, yeah. What was it, Red? I forget.

They had so many. They had the studios. Yeah, and they had an Originals program, which they just shut down, and Robert Kinsel just left. So, yeah, they basically threw in the towel on that. And why is that? Why is that? Amazon has done a pretty good job.

You can not like everything. Some of it's very good, And Apple's done a stellar job. You know, Facebook has not wandered in there, has tried slightly, but never really has gone that way. Why has, I'm recalling a dinner that Richard Plepler had and had Susan next to him and the conversation between them was fascinating, you know, and she was, she just wasn't a content person the way he was. And so why have they not done the same thing? What's the problem? I think that, I think it's Google. It's like, that's the point of the book

is that you don't understand, you can't understand YouTube unless you understand Google. Like before Susan was Salah or Kamanga who was super early at Google and extraordinarily Googly. So there is just this, for lack of a better term like a cultural philosophy right like youtube doesn't believe in gatekeepers they don't believe they don't understand media programming and it's something i think in part because of their they're concerned

about liability they're concerned about getting into more legal trouble or a regulatory trouble and so that's part of it and theirals program, which was we're going to make our YouTube stars in scripted TV to kind of compete with Netflix and Amazon. I mean, there's an argument that if they invested more,

that that could have been successful. Cobra Kai was one that's now like a minor hit on Netflix. Yeah. But, you know, like there was PewDiePie, for instance,

was the biggest star on YouTube for a long time. They have this scare PewDiePie was like a reality TV the biggest star on YouTube for a long time. They had this scare PewDiePie. It was like a reality TV show. I watched some of it. Like it doesn't, in part, people who are PewDiePie fans don't really want to see that, right? They want to see him play video games. Right, right.

And so I think a part of it is like this gap between the company has a hard time understanding the creator base. I think it's changed a little bit, but for a long time it was their eyes were so set on like traditional media and Hollywood. We have to get them onto YouTube. The very beginning they used to have

these showcases, you know, that Chad ran that would have, there was one down in San Francisco and there was this young star who was big on it

named Katy Perry. And she sang, you know, and she was, they were showing off some of their people who were doing well on it. So they were there, but they just couldn't keep going.

And I think it had to do with they spent a lot of their time stealing other people's copyrighted material and then not getting in nearly enough trouble for it and then moving their way through. I think, and for a long time, they didn't think that the stars of YouTube were marketable, really. Like, you know, Fred. You remember Fred was a really, like, even PewDiePie, right, early on. It's like, can we make money from this guy? And then he said some terrible things, and then it got...

Yeah, and then there's stars like PewDiePie and Logan Paul. Like, you know, the inevitable happens when you, like, let young 20-something dudes broadcast themselves with no rules. I've always thought that YouTube doesn't get the scrutiny it deserves because it has these

two incredible heat shields. Specifically, meta has been the gift that keeps on giving to Alphabet. And two, as you referenced, Susan Wojcicki is incredibly likable and is the most senior female executive. So I think she probably doesn't get the pushback that other executives get sometimes. And in certain instances, she gets more than she deserves probably. But my question is, as a father of 12 and 15 year old boys, and I don't know if you have kids, getting to know YouTube as well as,

I always feel like someone like you right now knows YouTube as well as anybody that doesn't work at YouTube in this moment. Do you think for parents with teenage boys, YouTube is a net positive or a net negative? How would you approach your son's use of YouTube? Have you watched Mr. Beast videos in their entirety, Scott? Yeah, I have. Yeah. I mean, is Mr. Beast that different than reality TV? I don't know.

There's a lot of wish fulfillment in Mr. Beast, right? He seems so far he's avoided any of the pratfalls of- I think it's cute. The metaphor that someone at the company used was like before 2018, really, it was like cars without seatbelts. Like they didn't have any safeguards. And they put in the seatbelt laws and have made a big difference. And like the FTC fined them around children's privacy. So your kid who's under 13, like that programming is very different in part because like yeah like the regulators actually had some teeth and did something i think i mean i guess in part the book is just a it's a call to to like pay attention to youtube more like there are not i think there

should be there should be academics and journalists like writing about mr beast like like game of thrones like his audience is that big yeah yeah like we should be kind of scrutinizing like what materials in there. And in part, just YouTube is so undercover because like academics have a hard time getting data from the company. Video is harder to analyze than text. So yeah, that's my long-winded answer.

Which is one of the big issues with misinformation, I know, for that. Let me ask you something from the history. People don't realize this, but Yahoo almost bought YouTube. And I think Gideon Yu was there, was the dealmaker, as I recall. And Terry Semel wasn't going to pay enough, I guess. And one of the things I'll never forget Sergey Brin telling me, because he was much more involved in the company then, was we couldn't lose YouTube. He said it to me. He's like, of all the things, there were two, the ad company they bought,

and then YouTube. And they had Google Video that was not going anywhere. And I remember the woman who ran it. I don't remember her name, but Jen, I think something like that. And he said we had to have it. It was existential for this company. How important is YouTube for Google now or Alphabet now? So, Sergey, unsurprisingly, didn't speak to me for the book. I don't think he speaks to anyone anymore.

Yeah, the company actually, I sent him a bunch of fact check questions about Sergey and Larry. I think that was a mistake. You sound very even-handed on this. I would even say, my sense is you actually strike an optimistic tone around YouTube, which is not where a lot of journalists go. I think my sense is that Larry and Sergey cared about YouTube because it was a search engine. It was a powerful, even early on, it was a powerful search engine and one that, you know, this was a, that's Google's existential fear, right? Is that someone will beat them in search. And YouTube remains the world's second biggest search engine. So I think in that sense,

it is incredibly valuable to Google. It is there, you know, it's debatable whether or not social media, I think you call it social media, if you call TikTok social media, you certainly call YouTube social media. It is very important for Google to have an arm in that, to have a foothold there in that market, especially now that it's moving towards sort of e-commerce, whatever metaverse-y thing.

Like YouTube is incredibly important for Google there. It is now the world's biggest music service and probably the biggest podcasting service that no one talks about, right? Like YouTube is desperate now. They're saying, oh, you're already uploading your podcast. Why not just flip a switch and put it on YouTube, which is a lot more hours of content.

So I think it's a growing percentage. You know, cloud is much more important to Google in some sense, but YouTube, it's the future growth beyond search advertising, which is the company's been looking for that for, what, two decades now, basically? So YouTube, my sense is YouTube would be worth $100 billion plus on its own. That the growth and the revenue and the profitability, do you think there's ever a chance at Alphabet, if their stock were to languish it would consider spinning it um i i it's hard to decouple youtube from google's ad tech machinery like i mean this

is a little we like google's you know the sales team that sells youtube ads doesn't report to susan like they report up to Google's head of chief business officer. Like Philip Schindler runs the ads for YouTube and like all the backend, like the part of the reasons for YouTube is so successful is because advertisers just give Google a check and then Google is like, we're going to run a search ad for you, a display ad and a video ad. And we're going to like algorithmically give it to the, sort out the best place to put it. So YouTube kind of loses that

um and it loses a lot of it's just machine learning power um which you know maybe would have you know better societal consequences but but also like um so i i think that's unlikely i think it's more likely that google will be forced to listen i think they're going to be forced to do something i don't think they're going to do something on their own will to spin out their ad tech business that's under a lot more scrutiny. It doesn't seem like the Department of Justice is going to

force them to spin out YouTube. No, there's too much competition in that area. Let me ask you a final question for me. Trump, I think Sundar was very non-committal. I think it means they're not going to do a thing. They're just going to keep him off.

They put him in like permanent purgatory, which doesn't, I hate to say this, doesn't seem fair because they should make a decision one way or the other, but they sort of purgatory them forever. Yeah, I think they're, I don't see them acting before Facebook. Like they just haven't in the past. I think YouTube's more difficult because Trump is,

Trump is, you know, he's a big presence on YouTube but he's not nearly as big as he was on Facebook and Twitter. The bigger problem for YouTube

is the sort of that they, so much of their first 15 years, it's like you and I can go on and be on equal footing with a news organization,

with CNN, with ABC, right? And now they've been trying to scramble to, oh, we're going to raise authoritative channels. And so you have like our conservative pundit on YouTube hosting, was it Carrie Lake? Help me, the Arizona candidate, talking about how the election was in 2020 was rigged. And, you know, YouTube's going to have a lot more of that coming up to the midterms, right? And how do you, they're, the company will say, like, well, we want to, we've outlawed sort of election conspiracies. But at the same time, if it's a context of news, right, we don't want to take down, like, you and I having this conversation about the big lie versus, like, me actually promoting that.

So that they've set themselves up for this intractable problem. And I think that's bigger. I think that, I mean, I assume that they're going to, if Facebook lets Trump back on, then YouTube would follow is my hunch, but I don't see them as a first mover. And writing the book, Mark, what was the most surprising thing you discovered about YouTube and Alphabet? alphabet that's a good question maybe i shouldn't be it's like a little bit naive but i was shocked about how uh they saw the kids they saw kids content sort of exploding and they didn't know how to handle it right and part of this was legal issues but at one point in 10 years ago like the biggest channel in the world was this really strange it's anonymous unboxing channel who ended up being like a former adult uh film actress um so i i was surprised by how uh people inside the company felt like paralyzed yeah and just like had no idea what to do under

that circumstance and that was kind of shocking to me yeah interesting interesting um also you had a really good thing that people did know about that susan worked for Elon. She was looking to leave, which was. Oh, yeah. That was also surprising. And then, you know, there's like a lot of internal disputes about how much the sort of YouTube's problem should be on Susan versus the prior leadership. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's a great book.

You should read it. Like, comment, subscribe. Inside YouTube's chaotic rise to world domination. Thank you, Mark Bergen. Thanks for having me. Congratulations on the book, Mark. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it.

All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I have a couple wins. I think probably the biggest win for all of us globally is that Ukrainian troops have taken back a lot of lost territory. Since earlier this month, Ukrainian troops have taken back an area about the size of Rhode Island. Yeah. And they claim that the momentum was driven in part by Western military aid.

And of course, they need more. But this is arguably a turning point, whether it's the invasion of Normandy. This is when Ukraine has gotten off its heels onto its toes. It's a victory for Europe. It's a victory for democracy. It's also, I think, what we will find out when this conflict hopefully comes to an end, I think we're going to find out that Western security apparatus and covert operations from our men and women in our intelligence group in terms of training Ukrainian forces with more sophisticated weaponry

will have played a huge role. But this is not only a victory for Ukraine. It's a victory for Europe. It's a victory for the West. And it's a victory for freedom-loving people all over the world. This is a big deal. Yeah, I agree. I think people, and Putin, there's been a lot of coverage of trouble that he is in because of that. I don't ever think he's in real trouble because they have to actually do something about him. But it's not

good. This is bad for him. This is very bad for him. And you're even seeing some very brave people in local governments in Russia, which I was just shocked, who have come out against the war. And they do that at huge risk to their safety and the safety of their families. So I think that's very exciting. My other win is I've been thinking a lot about Serena Williams. And I would argue the greatest athlete of all time, and I'm not into sports, but was Muhammad Ali. Not as much because of his athletic excellence. His win-loss ratio is not the best.

His win-loss ratio is not the best. But what he meant to the sport and the world, he meant something much more than his excellence in the boxing ring. And I think the Williams sisters probably are going to be – are in that same weight class, if you will. But I was just shocked how overt the racism was the first few times one of the Williams sisters won a big tennis tournament. And they didn't like the way they behaved. They were more aggressive. But it was just so blatantly racist. You know, they wanted the world of tennis in America wanted, you know, wanted Chris Everett in a nice dress. Yeah.

It started with Martina Navratilova being aggressive and athletic. And then, I mean, she's a straight line to Serena Williams, but go ahead. Sorry. But she dominated the sport. But again, I think the reason she'll probably be remembered for a long, long time, and both of the sisters really, is that it's not only what they did on the court, but the larger, kind of the larger impact they had. So, I think it's just a huge moment of, you know, recognition for her and what she meant to the sport and what she meant more broadly to America. I think it's a real nice moment, if you will, for her and her family. It is. Deserves all the credit. Any fails? Sad fails is how she was treated?

Well, I don't know if that's a win or a fail. Those are my two. We'll call them what we want. Okay, that's all right. This discussion of TikTok really has to happen. Wall Street Journal just had a story about internal documents that show that users spend 17.6 million hours a day watching Reels, which is their version of that. And TikTok is 197.8. This is the biggest company in the world, Facebook, at this. And they're getting their clocks cleaned, so to speak, from TikTok, just by a factor of 10. It's

crazy. It's crazy. But it's not because it's a better product. I mean, it's just show you products do out. They're not doing anything but making a great product. It's the ownership issue we have. And then the other one that I think is interesting that just came out that we'll love to talk about maybe on Thursday is Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg had a great piece about Amazon spending $15 billion on programming, including sports, this year, has spent ahead of Netflix $13.6 billion, Disney's $9.5 billion, and Apple's $6 billion. So the money still has been pouring in to this space, into the streaming. And these tech, as I've told Hollywood people, these tech companies ain't going to give up. Yep, yep, I get it. And then on a final note, Cara, I wanted to read an email that came in to me.

Yes, yes. Or that I got, that I forwarded to Lara, and I asked if we could read it on the show. Yes, sure. The email said the following. Dear Scott, we write as parents to our beautiful nine-year-old daughter, and they name her name, but I'm not going to say it because I don't know if they're comfortable with us revealing our identity, who has a common form of dwarfism. We were disappointed in a moment in last week's episode where you referred to Kara as the tallest M in the room. We are sure you are aware that the M word is extremely derogatory.

For some reason, stature seems to be one of the few physical differences where negative comments are still deemed acceptable. You are obviously a very intelligent and eloquent person, and there are many other ways

you could have made your point without using that expression. As parents, when we hear that word, it's like a punch to the gut, especially when used by someone we respect. We will always advocate for our daughter, and we hope you will not use that word moving forward. We appreciate your time and consideration. And then their names, and they're from the UK.

And other than this being a story about a white guy finding his truth and overcoming his internal deficiencies. I wanted to, first off, they're absolutely right. And just as I remember in college, we used to use the R word all the time as part of our common language to describe anything. And then I remember Timothy Schreiber at World Economic Forum giving a very powerful speech. You just don't say this. There's no reason to say this word. I thought the lesson here for me or what I want to highlight is, first off, absolutely, I will stop using the word. And I appreciate the feedback.

But the lesson to young people is that there's a difference between being right and being effective. And this email is both. And that is they're right, but it's effective. It was respectful. It was civil. And it didn't immediately put me on my heels. Because I think what you find is a lot of times in our discourse, people aren't really trying to be effective. They're trying to be right and pose for the cameras. And this is how you actually affect change. And also, the other lesson here is that I don't like something, especially among young men raised in kind of this Trump era in social

media, that they feel every time someone comes at them and points out something, that they're supposed to double down and be more politically incorrect and get back in the face of people. I can say what I want. Woke, woke, woke. The key isn't to be right. The key isn't to double down. It's to evolve. So, one, I really appreciate this email. It was civil. It was in its own way kind of caring, caring about their daughter and also being very nice to me.

And it's effective. They didn't assume the worst of you. A hundred percent. You know what I mean? That's why it was. They didn't say you, jackass. Interestingly, when people push on the idea that someone's being woke not to use these words, you're being kind not to use them. Why do you want to make people feel bad?

100%. Why? Why? If they tell you, it makes them feel bad. Same thing with, you know, they, them. Like, they have to go crazy on this stuff. Agreed. Like, let people.

It drives me crazy. it drives me crazy. It drives me crazy. And this is a good example of, I met with a big media executive the other day. It's like, why can't I say what I want? I said, maybe you just shouldn't anymore. Just because. You're bringing up a key point. And that is, on this issue, it's super easy for me to understand this is a layup.

They're right. I'm wrong. I see the point. Sometimes people come after me for stuff that I think, I'm not sure I entirely agree. But here's the thing. If it's an easy give and they're genuine that it upsets them, make the give. Stop using the word. Stop using the pronoun.

It's just, it's be kind. If someone is legitimately upset and they share and they represent a number of people who are legitimately upset. And it's not core to who you are. I mean, most of the time, these are not big gives. They're not big gives. You know, there are people in my life that get offended over weird stuff that I find it ridiculous they get offended over. But the point is, if it upsets them and it's not difficult for you, it's not a big give, then just be on the right side of the issue.

Correct. Scott, I love how you evolve. You're evolving. There we go. You're an evolving thing. I don't know what you're evolving into, but the organization Little People of America is a helpful post about the M word for anyone who'd like to learn. It's linked in our show notes.

Scott, I really appreciate that. Thank you for the letter. Again, we're not using their names, but thank you. It was a great letter and we completely agree with you. Anyway, we welcome all feedback from the letter. Again, we're not using their names, but thank you. It was a great letter, and we completely agree with you. Anyway, we welcome all feedback from the show. Even people don't agree with this. We don't agree with you, but whatever. And questions, too, go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question or note for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. There's the Emmys to talk about. There's Mudge. There's all kinds of stuff happening. Again, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. There's the Emmys to talk about, there's Mudge, there's all kinds of stuff happening. Again, it's Newsy. We're back to school. We are ready with our pencils sharpened, or nobody uses pencils. And we are excited. I'm excited you're back, as I said in the last show. I think everybody loved having you back. I always note this in a show, but I was stopped four times this weekend by people in the supermarket, I always note this in a show, but I was stopped four times this weekend by people in the supermarket, at the plant store, and they were listening to Pivot right then.

And they gave me great feedback, and they were thrilled you were back. So I was thrilled to say. Yeah, I got stopped in the gym this morning. Christina, I think Joel, and they were all great fans. And you like it, right? I always say to people. I love it. I might come up and say hi. We're friendly.

I like it. It's nice. Yeah. They came up, and they're just great. And they really appreciate the content. And we appreciate them. So I always like to call them out for that. It's not for self-aggrandizement.

It's really always a surprise and always a delight when that happens. Anyway, Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andretat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Severio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. What does it mean to be a grown-up? What does it mean to be a man?

It doesn't mean being right. It means being evolving. It means evolving and also taking easy wins to make other people feel better.