Pivot - TikTok deal gets a presidential blessing, friend of Pivot Julia Angwin's internet Blacklight, and RIP RBG

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about the details of the new TikTok deal that garnered President Trump's blessing. Scott rants about Palantir going public, and then Friend of Pivot Julia Angwin joins Kara and Scott to talk about Blacklight, a new internet tool that shows you just how creepy the websites you visit are. We are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here: voxmedia.com/podsurvey.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi,

hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. Hi, everyone. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And this is Scott Galloway, the inaugural guest on Sway, Kara Swisher.

But wait, no, you chose someone else. You chose someone else for your first podcast. Yeah, I did. Despite the fact I'm still the most downloaded person ever on Recode. Okay. Who was your first guest? Nancy Pelosi. You ever heard of her?

Speaker Pelosi. You know, tomato, tomato, the dog, speaker of the house. Wait till you see who's coming up. I got some big names, and you're not one of them. I'll tell you that. You got Nancy. That's great. I know. It's a good one.

She gets very spicy in the whole thing. I bother her about not doing more impeachments and not being big enough. She calls Trump personally disgusting. She told me how she prayed for him, and then she said there's not enough prayers in the world for him. It was good. It was very exciting. I got her to talk about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which we'll talk about in a second, and it was good. And also, in case you open your New York Times physical edition today, there's a giant picture of Kara Swisher in it. You look like, that one picture, you look like a 13-year-old on field trip of the most liberal, obnoxious school in the world. Let's get serious here. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I was down at the courthouse. I took my lovely one-year-old daughter, who loved the singing and didn't really understand what was happening, but what an incredible life. And I owe her quite a bit myself personally as a gay person and woman. Just stop right there because most people tend to couch her accomplishments in the context of gender equality, but you think it impacted gay rights as well? Oh, yeah. She was really one of the ones pushing. One of the things I liked,

and I referenced it actually in the Sway podcast, was this idea, too, Nancy Pelosi, was this idea of dissenters, like being a dissenter. And she was a longtime dissenter when it wasn't the thing to pass. And one of the things that's interesting is she said dissenters become the common view eventually. And then it becomes whatever, you know, you're focused on tomorrow, not today.

And so I really took a lot of, she really was one of those long-term thinkers, which I think is hard to do today. And she certainly was very early to gay rights. So she linked them all together in a systemic way. And that's what other people, they were, you know, either gay rights or people of color, she linked it all together. And I think that's what's really important, is that you take it to a universal issue around equality, whether it's pay equality. And one of the things that was most interesting,

I think, is, I don't know if you know about the Lilly Ledbetter law, which is a pay equity law. That was originally a dissent that she wrote. That's how that law got written, because she dissented in a case around pay equity that Lilly Ledbetter lost in the Supreme Court, but she won in legislation. And the ability to compromise, which I think is not something that you see these days at all whatsoever. Yeah, I did just a small amount of research and one of my colleagues, Maria Petrova, sent me a list of things. She was a leading force in securing, obtaining a mortgage without a mail co-signer, obtaining a checking account without a male co-signer,

starting a business without a male co-signer. These are all things that you used to have to get the approval of a dude. Get a credit card without a male co-signer, obtaining a business loan without a male co-signer, to retain employment while pregnant, obtain birth control without having to obtain your husband's permission. That's a good one. Not to be forced to provide proof of sterilization

to obtain retained employment, pension benefits equal to male coworkers, equal consideration to be executors of their children's estates. And the thing that struck me as I have learned a little bit more about her, I think a lot of people have over the last 48 hours was she was exceptionally collegial.

I think that there needs to be more focus on separating the person from the ideology, that it's just so easy. And I think I've fell into this trap for a big part of my life. There's a difference between compromise and collegiality. I think a lot of people make compromise out of strategy and they're forced into a corner and they realize, well, I'd rather get some or most of this and just agree. corner and they realize, well, I'd rather get some or most of this and just agree. But she genuinely made an effort. She was friends and liked and respectful and generous with people totally ideologically opposed to her. And I think that served her well. I think there's a lesson in that. Yeah. I have to tell you, she was, let me just say, she was a very close friend of Antonin Salia, which you can't believe. And one of the things that was really interesting, I went to tell you, let me just say, she was a very close friend of Antonin's Leah, which you can't believe. And one of the things that was really interesting, I went to a thing in Washington when I was a young reporter where divorce of Kate and Petruchio in Taming of

the Shrew. And they could only use text from the Shakespeare thing. And they were so, they had such a ball together. And it was really, it was fascinating. And I was like, are they friends? Because they were so, so aligned as friends and at the same time had just terrible differences on legal things. And so it is lost on this age. That's largely because it's now so cynical and like the ridiculous talking points, spinningness of the whole thing. And I think plainly arguing different points of view is what's missing versus trying to like, like Lindsey Graham right now, just trying to get out of what he said. Just say I changed my mind and you're right. I'm a hypocrite.

So what? But shared experiences with people who don't have the same. Make up all kinds of things. I think it all goes back to, you know, we've segregated schools again. And so people have no empathy. They have no shared history. And they immediately assume, well, if you're different than me ideologically on this issue, you must be a different person.

Your tribal instincts, your slow thinking takes over. And you start thinking, this is a bad person. And I'm not only fighting for an ideology, I'm fighting for something deeper. And it just leads to this incredible division. Yeah. Yeah. But she was quite progressive. Anyway, she is a legend. I owe her so much. And if you ever care to listen to my new podcast, if you ever do, at the end I talk about that on My Children. It's very moving and you will weep. That's a pretty low bar for me. I weep a lot these days. Just have a glass of wine

and listen to it. I cried everything. Just listen to the end. Just go to the end. The Digital Emmy streamed live on Sunday night. What did you think? I thought they were okay. They were pretty good. I don't like any of those shows in regular life, so I like it in pieces like that. Yeah, for me,

the big takeaway was, I'm fascinated by the fact that Americans, even with our goals, they say, all right, the very American thing is, if you write down your goals, they're 10 times as likely to happen.

And I think we in America have started to believe that as Americans, if we articulate something or write it down, that it's more likely to happen. And I think we in America have started to believe that as Americans, if we articulate something or write it down, that it's more likely to happen. And I think we're, as a society, just coming to grips with the fact that the virus didn't get the memo on just how fucking exceptional it is to be American. And we have this narrative. We have this narrative around, okay, we're going to lose some of the old and some of the weak. The virus is going to take the summer holiday off so we can go to Nantucket or the shore. There'll be a little bit of an apex in the fall and then boom, the vaccine's here and we're back in business. And

the virus didn't get this memo. And I thought the most interesting moment was when they turned on the lights to an empty auditorium. And I think it's going to be an empty auditorium next year. I don't think, I think America just in the last two weeks is coming to grips with the fact that this is our life for the rest of 2020. And it's probably our lives in 2021. And I thought it was a very powerful moment the way they did that. It's got nothing to do with television. did that. It's got nothing to do with television. But anyway, it just sort of struck me that, I don't know about you, but lately I've been thinking, wow, I've been sad. I've been thinking, wow, this is really our life in the next 18 months. It is. I'm not sad about it. I'm like, all right, okay. You're just dealing with it.

I'm always like that though, Scott. That's my whole way. You know, I agree. I think it's just, this is what we have now. It's just, it's like everything. It's just this is now. And people have had it much worse in history. Indeed, right. It's not like we're, you know. And a lot of people aren't as fortunate as us. Now all my guilt's coming out. Well, you can still, look, everyone gets mentally affected. Like there is a, you know, there's a collective depression and a collective, you know, isolation that just, but, you know, you see people outside.

There's little bits of creativity for everybody, but you see people outside, there's little bits of creativity for everybody, I think. And so people, what I want to focus on is how people have adapted. And that's what I'm going to focus on. People really have tried to adapt. And what we need is better behavior from our government. That's really, I think people have done great. The government sucks. That's really, you know what I mean? Like in terms of responding to our needs. But speaking of government sucking, we're going to get to our big stories. The drama between the Trump administration and the Chinese app companies continues. Over the weekend, Trump approved, well, he blessed a deal.

There's no deal yet, by the way. I can fill you in on some stuff between TikTok and Oracle that will delay the Chinese social media in the United States. I do. I've talked to some people. Yes, I'm a journalist. The deal will create a new U.S.-based company called TikTok Global. Oracle and Walmart would own 20% of the company. It's a little more complex than that. Meanwhile, Trump planned to ban WeChat on Sunday evening, and the federal judge temporarily blocked the ban. It looked like, and then there was this crazy speech he gave, which by the way, nobody involved in this deal knew he was going to do talking about this $5 billion education fund, which was going to be used for STEM and some other things, right? They didn't, they didn't trust me. They didn't, um,

that they were going to, uh, that, that he wants to do it for teaching real American history, uh, patriotic America. They were like, what? It sounds to do it for teaching real American history, patriotic American. They were like, what? It sounds like a propaganda museum. It sounds like, you know, it's sort of a mix between like, I don't even know. It's Chinese. It's so Chinese of them. It's so Hitler youth of it.

Like, it's like, what? Like, you're not going to like be doing this. These companies don't want any, they want to, if they're going to do an education on which they are when they go public, it's going to focus on, it's going to have a, apparently a very, it's not going to be doing that, but they are trying to locate some of this stuff in Texas in order to assuage the Trump administration. The whole thing feels like a fix and nothing like they started. So what do we think is going to happen? And of course, China has to sign off on the whole thing, which they may not do. Yeah, I think we're, I think we, meaning everyone from Oracle to Walmart to the Trump administration to Americans have kind of, have been played by the new global geopolitical superpower, and that's China. I don't know,

I think there's a 50-50 chance any of this happens at all. And if it does happen, all this really is, is, I mean, I think it's 12 and a half percent ownership from oracle and seven and a half from walmart and then i can explain it to you but go ahead yeah is it do i have it wrong so well no no you have it right it just will dilute the other players it looks from what the reporting was was that walmart uh that they did not american companies don't have a, don't have a, that ByteDance continues to be the major owner. And they control the algorithm. Right. And we'll get to that in a minute. But in the new entity, it looks like, I can go over the old numbers, but the new numbers, it looks like the dilution,

the 20% purchase will dilute people so that 53% will be owned by either U.S. investors, 11%, by the way, there's international investors like Societe Generale in France, and then 36% will be owned by the Chinese and that the board will be U.S. citizens. So governance and ownership will probably be mostly U.S. and then they'll go public, which will further dilute the Chinese stake. But it's a question of how they fork off the algorithm and if China allows that to happen. I guess they'll do a licensing deal, something like that. It's just needlessly complex.

And because Trump keeps mouthing off, it feels hopelessly corrupt. But it's essentially a vendor deal and a new financing, as you said. That's exactly right. We've gone from, in the space of, I don't know, 30 days, we've gone from capitalism to socialism. When the government interferes in private despoils and the means of production, that's socialism. Okay. But this isn't even socialism because it's not consistent. It's cronyism.

So it, and it accomplishes, it accomplishes absolutely none of the objectives or the reason why they were going to be cronyists. And not like that, the worst error you can make in strategy. And I consistently, I've made this error my whole life is that I took a boxing when I first moved to New York and started believing I was a good boxer. And then I signed up for this tournament. And then five seconds into the round, I'm on my back because I forgot. And this is one of the key tenets of strategy that speed bags don't hit back. And when Donald Trump makes these announcements and he forces, he abuses his power, makes a unilateral decision that forces a Chinese company into an uncomfortable position.

He doesn't realize that he is not competing against a speed bag. If the Chinese decided, if the Chinese saw us as vulnerable, the markets look like they're beginning to let out a little bit of air. If all of a sudden he came out and said, you know, we're going to stop buying American debt. And also where we see certain aspects of the supply chain of Apple in China as a security threat and we're going to begin looking into a forced sale of Apple assets in mainland China. Yeah. It could literally spawn or catalyze a 20% meltdown in the NASDAQ.

Or name your country could start saying, hey, Facebook, we need you to host your technology here and use our vendors. I mean, the notion that the Chinese aren't going to sit and wait and hit back is naive. It's not a speed bag. The redhead ends up on his back staring at bright lights thinking, well, I didn't realize I was fighting against someone who hit back.

Yeah, it's not a question of, I mean, I think some of the people who are in the deal right now are like, we don't even know, this isn't over. They're like, we don't know if the Chinese will agree, if this, they were, they're just literally, and I will say they didn't, this education thing, I think it hit them all. Like immediately after Trump made that speech in North Carolina, someone from one of the groups was like, that's not us. No, no.

Like I was like, cause I not us. No, no. Like I was like, cause I called it a museum of propaganda. Um, and they were sort of like immediately, nothing to do with that, like immediately. And, but it doesn't matter. It's just, the whole thing is just, the question is, will it protect Americans? No. Will it be better for Americans? No. Will it be better for the app? No. It just goes, it just, it's just a lot of noise for, by Trump, unfortunately. We'll see. They'll IPO next year and everyone will have champagne and everything else. We'll see who the

CEO is. If they get an interesting and decent CEO, Kevin Systrom is rumored to be, and they are talking to him. There's Vanessa Pappas, who we talked to. She's also in the running. They could bring back Kevin Mayer. It could be just between the Kevins. It could be a Kevin choice. I don't think they'll bring him back.

That would look weird. Oh, he might come back. If it's a separate TikTok global, it could be. Could be. He's immediate. Something's on my mind. They are going to move it to Texas, though.

That I think they don't have a choice on. Well, we're all moving to Texas and Florida. Sunshine of Texas. So you said something, though, about seven minutes ago that's haunting me. And you were saying that it's, you know, you're saying it's we've got to change government. I don't even know what you were talking about.

You're like, this isn't a problem. We need to change government. And I've been thinking a lot about focusing on the disease versus the symptom. And specifically, you know, we always talk about on this show and in general, the media talks about reforming big tech. And it's not about reforming big tech. It's about reforming government, specifically the DOJ, the SEC, the FTC, and beginning to regulate these companies. If we're sitting around hoping to reform that the business roundtable and the SEC is going to reform and consumers are going to reform big tech, we're going to be very disappointed. Yes, we are. And then I started thinking about, you know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I was saying about modern day feminism, and this is something that

is dangerous for me to broach, but that sort of a component of modern day feminism is essentially that this kind of lean in philosophy that we need to reform women's behavior at work and they need to embrace what I'll, for lack of a better term, call more white male patriarchal at work behaviors. And what we really need to do is reform the workplace. And that is demand that any trajectory a woman's on. And then when she gets maternity leave, she maintains that trajectory. Well, right now, it's almost like we're this progressive, nice firm. We're going to let

you take time off. Yeah. But they don't promote them while they're out on maternity leave if they were tracking towards a promotion. They don't ensure. And you end up in this weird arbitrage in our society where the only way you can be kind of a successful woman at a high-powered career is to arbitrage child rearing. It is. To a population that is generally lower educated, generally more immigrant, generally disenfranchised. And you kind of create this permanent underclass that values the work at home. And it's basically saying we're trying to reform women. And I'm fully baked this. We're trying to reform women into being just like dudes rather than saying we need to reform with the workplace. Yes. And that is figuring out a way that women-

I love that you're just coming to this conclusion that women have been- Am I late? Am I late to the party here? You're real late to the lady party, I gotta say. We've all been griping about this bullshit for a long time. All right. Let me talk about another-

I'm gonna interrupt you. Let me just tell you a story. When I came back to the Wall Street Journal after my maternity leave, I had broken all the stories on the internet feed. I was like the star reporter on this thing. I killed it. I went away for a very short time, by the way,

because they had really shitty maternity leave at the Wall Street Journal. I get back and a very high-ranking editor there said, after my performance was stellar, let me just say it was stellar, he's like, I guess you'll need more time. Because this is a guy with kids and a wife at home. Right. And I was like, time for what? And then he, Oh, and your job. I mean, you know,

if it's not quite as, you know, energetic and I go, why wouldn't it be? And he just sort of, he didn't want to say it. I said, cause if it has to do with me having children and you thinking I can't perform well because I have children, well, that's a problem with the entire system. But otherwise what you just said, it was illegal. And it was like, it was just, he just sort of his jaw dropped, you know, he's an older white guy. Remind me to hire you. Oh, I'm the worst. That's why I'm not an employee. Anyway, unfortunately, I like that you're getting woke. I think you need to watch. Yeah, but it's not woke because right now it'll offend people. I, let me put, I'm a sexist. I think that when my kid gets up in the middle of

the night, my wife hears it before I do. I think as long as women have ovaries, they will always take a disproportionate role. I sleep right through the baby. It's not true. And it's unfair in the raising of the kid, and the corporation needs to realize that. Okay, but I sleep right through babies. I can sleep right through my own babies. Do you? Yeah. I have an excellent sleep ability. Amanda gets right up. But always, I've always been able to sleep right through my own babies. Do you? I have an excellent sleep ability. Amanda gets right up. But always, I've always been able to sleep right through the babies. It's really quite a skill. But do you agree with, let me back up my statement.

It's the corporation that needs reforming. It's not, if there was many books about how corporations should. Yes. Because not only, let's not even make the moral argument. I always try to go to the capitalist argument. Yep. For the last 20 years, more women are graduating from college. Seven in 10 valedictorians are girls. So unless you really embrace progressive policies around ensuring women have productive home

lives while they can work, you're denying yourself of the most important and the most advanced workplace or work cohort of the last 50 years. Women are just graduating with better degrees. Yes. Yes. Anyways, so I always go to the capitalist movement. Here's what I'm going to make you do. Here's what I'm going to make you do. Go watch On the Basis of Sex.

It has Claire Foy in it. Oh, I watched that on CineMax like three years ago, over and over. Wait, this is a different one. Go watch it again and take that. That was a joke. Listen, we have to move on to take a quick break. I like that you're a feminist now, but oh, Scott. Coming back to talk about Palantir's official director,

this is an area that you've written about quite movingly and emotionally, and I love it. Palantir, I loved it. We'll be joined by friend of Pivot, Julia Angwin. 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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and money. Plus, you can rest assured knowing that Anthropic built Claude with an emphasis on safety. The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Okay, Scott, welcome back. I'm just going to let you go on about Palantir. You really have a bee in your bonnet, and I want you to talk about it. It filed its first confidential registration draft back in July,

then amended it, filing several times for filing the official S-1, then amending it several more times. Scott, lay it out. Have a little rant. Go for it. Go ranting. It, lay it out. Have a little rant. Go for it. Go ranting. It's pretty basic here. I like that they're trying to be the Uncola and trying to embrace the government. Talk about your Uncola idea. Uncola. Tell me what you mean, because the young people don't remember Uncola. Well, in the 70s, 7-Up had to differentiate from colas that were

smart enough to put an addictive substance, caffeine, in their drink. And they decided to be anti-establishment in an era where we didn't want to be the establishment. And this Trinidadian dancer, this incredible guy, his name's escaping me, died at the age of 84 after marrying this spectacular dancer and being married to her for 59 years. Anyways, they said, we're the Uncola. And there's a real lesson in marketing that because we like variants in the gene pool, the moment dad's wearing Dockers, we're not wearing Dockers. And the moment most aspirational consumer brands get over 20 or 30% market share, it creates opportunities for Puma or whoever. And it's the same thing in tech. The most successful tech company in the last 10 years is a non-Amazon Amazon, Shopify.

And it's a really smart strategy to try and be the non-tech tech firm. And that's how they're trying to position themselves. But all of it, if you just read through the, it reads like a manifesto. The word cloud has things like survivalists and rights. And I say, if you're interviewing at Palantir and you show up one day and they're all wearing black Nikes, you may want to skip drinks after work. I mean, these guys sound just bottom line, just very strange. And it's just a series of hypocritical statements that they understand America better.

And all of this is a bit of a sideshow. It's meant to muddy the waters and distract from one key central item, and that is Palantir is old enough to get a pilot's license. It's old enough to join the armed services with their parents' consent. It's 17 years old. It's raised over $3 billion. And unlike tech, I'll give them this, they haven't figured out a way to make money. They've lost $500 million on $750 million, and it's more like a services company than

technology at this point. So it'll just be very interesting to see if the market regurgitates on this. So it's like an oracle. Well, it's not even an oracle. Oracle's in the enterprise. Anyways, but it's going to be very interesting to see how the market responds to Palantir. Because if you look at Snowflake's valuation, if you look at what's happened with Unity, I mean, these software companies,

and there's a larger, there's something very reminiscent of how in 2000, as the market was unwinding, and I'm a glass half empty guy kind of all the time. First, they abandoned B2C, and then they went to B2B. And I feel like everyone's abandoning consumer and going to B2B SaaS right now. Just the way they went. B2C got abandoned first, and then everyone said, oh, wait, but B2B,

let's go to ICG. Remember all these internet business-to-business platforms that were worth more than General Electric in 2000 for about a hot minute? Indeed. I wonder if everyone's crowding into SaaS right now with kind of these ridiculous valuations. One of the things you call it Palantil, too, which is very clever. I hadn't even, I was like, how did he think of that? But, you know, I think the idea is what are the warning signs here and what are the good signs? What would you say?

Would you be like, whoa, stop sign. This is a problem. Okay. First off, businesses are supposed to have a path to profitability. And if after 17 years, you're losing 60 cents on the dollar, that's a red flag. So that immediately goes to, well, have they built up distribution or IP or relationships? Because Snap and Uber aren't profitable, but there's real value with both those companies. So I think the real value of Palantir, quite frankly, is the relationship with the government. And I'm just wondering, given Peter Thiel's embrace of Trump, and now they're trying to distance themselves from Trump like crazy,

all of a sudden the CEO's announced he's a socialist, despite the fact that he takes about a $12 million salary. Supposedly Peter Thiel is very disappointed in the president because of his response to the pandemic. But my question is this, is Kamala Harris ever going to be in the same room with Thiel, who was in the same room with a white nationalist? And then some people reminded me that actually Thiel and his buddies have been big supporters of Senator Harris's.

But I wonder if, I just don't know how a new administration is going to respond to Palantir. I think they are so, the firm is so closely linked with him right now. And then you think about, okay, one central tenant. So you can't de-link. You cannot de-link from them. That's when you become a bad oligarch, is you become contaminated by someone who loses power. But even scarier here, if you think about steps to tyranny, it's getting control of the media,

it's getting control of money, and then it's getting control of the media it's getting control of of money and then it's getting control of the government we have facebook zuckerberg slash teal who've decided who have essentially control of the media and then introduce a coin to try and get control of the economy and now we have the number two at at facebook trying to get control of the operating system of government that decides who gets surveilled, what immigrants, the FBI knocks on their door. Is this a good idea? Did anyone decide, I know, let's put the guy behind Zuckerberg in charge of the operating system, which is their stated mission of government? Is that a good idea? First off, is it a good idea that any one person should have that much power across

different components of our society? And do people look at Facebook and go, yep, that's the flavor we want in terms of our surveillance backbone across the government? I like the cut of their jib, that Facebook. Let's put them in charge of the backbone, the data backbone for the operating system, for surveillance for the U.S. government. It's just sort of, this is kind of, it really is sort of frightening. Yep, it is. I mean, I think we'll see, but what do you, okay, so the thing is the closest to the Trump administration, that's your thing. What is the positive part? Well, I agree with Palantir that they have said we are proud and happy to, and honored to work with the government. I buy that. I don't think, I believe that the most noble- But the others are going to.

Look, Amazon's right in there. Elon Musk just signed a big defense deal. And Apple's, they're all going to get in there. They're all going to get in there. Agreed. It's a talking point and it's a brand point, but it's a smart one. You can't, like, you have to link yourself to government, not a, like, there's never going to be as corrupted administration as, it's a smart one. You have to link yourself to government. There's never going to be as corrupted administration as there's a quieter corruption going on in other administrations. This is sort of right out in front. It's sort of all over the place. There's not going to be this kind of pay for play kind of personality running the White House. Well, that's the point. You occasionally have a bad king, but on the whole, the arc of our our u.s government's decisions has dents in it but bends towards justice and the righteous says ruth bader ginsburg but go ahead yes

rbd but they've they've embraced it publicly whereas google and facebook have all these virtual walkouts and we're upset about ice palantir said sorry we are all in on the government i think that's a really smart brand decision and they won't work with governments that are adversarial. They're not taking, you know, they say they've turned down projects with governments that are at odds with ours. So I think that positioning is really, really smart. Some of their products seem to be gaining to their credit. They're getting greater contribution margin from some of their products. Their revenue does seem to be accelerating in 2020. But it's still a business that you're going to have to buy something other than the cash flows. Because if you look at

Snowflake with 3,400 customers, Palantir has 120. And when you look at the average price, you can sort of go in bite size on Snowflake and ramp up similar to a Google or Facebook, which is why they're so powerful across small and medium-sized customers. Basically, three customers are a third of Palantir's revenue. So it just, if you look at the numbers, it looks, smells, and feels like a company, a services company that has technology at the center, for example, in Accenture. I think there's a lot of hand-waving at Palantir. A lot of hand-waving. Which, and they try to create this sort of mystique of mystique. It's just hand-waving. It's hand-waving. Osama bin Laden.

And we're working with the CIA. The reality is it's a good business with some, it's a bad business with some intellectual properties, some very smart people, I think a strong culture, some technology. It should be valued at Accenture, despite the fact Accenture is massively profitable, which is three to four times revenue, which, guess what, means that Palantir is worth somewhere between three and four billion generously. Hand-waving. That's what4 billion generously. Hand-waving. That's what I feel like, hand-waving. Yeah, it's like all this kind of— They always were like, I can only meet you here. And I was like, oh, bite me.

Look over here and look over here. Years ago when they wanted to meet reporters, it was always like as if we were in a spy versus spy novel. It was ridiculous. It was so inane. And I was like, this is inane. Oh, you don't understand this. I was like, bite me.

Like, bite me on this. Like, just meet me for coffee or don't. I don't care. Like, it was crazy. Anyways, it's going to be very interesting if this gets through. The stock market, despite pullbacks, they're looking for anything. Airbnb is the one we're looking at

really in the bigs. I would say Snowflake and Airbnb are the significant companies here. But we'll see how this does and And we'll see if Peter Thiel gets richer. All right, Scott, let's bring on our friend of Pivot, Julia Angwin. Julia Angwin is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the impact of tech on society. Welcome to Pivot, Julia. It's great to be here. And Julia and I also went to journalism school together,

and we worked at the Wall Street Journal together, I think, at the same time. And we've known each other a long time. So we're going to get to this new privacy tool you've been doing, because I want you to explain the markup really quickly, really quickly. And then talk about what's the most unreported story in tech and business right now, because you really do focus in on privacy and other issues. So explain what the markup does or what you're trying to do. The markup is meant to bring tech expertise to tech reporting.

So half of the markups newsroom is programmers. And we use technological techniques basically to investigate what the tech companies are doing. Our basic premise is you can't cover them without understanding the inner workings. And most tech reporters aren't technological, right? I mean, tech reporters tend to be tech literate, but not able to build and do forensics. So we really see ourselves as like forensics examiners of the algorithms that they're using to, you know, run our lives. All right. So what do you think the most unreported stories are then?

There's a lot of things that are important, but just at an extremely high level, the most important thing I think is that these tech companies have more power than any government in terms of deciding what we see and how we experience the world. And so we are always trying to probe that. So for instance, like we did a big analysis took, I don't know, nine months recently of how Google advantages itself in search results. So the top of the Google search results tends to be mostly Google's own properties and things that Google wants to drive traffic to. And that's a change from when they used to see themselves as a portal to the web. And when we can measure and document those things that everyone kind of feels in their

No, they know. They can look at it and see it. Yes. You can feel it, but it's actually really nice to see the data and realize, oh, no, this is really actually happening. Right. Right. And so how these companies advantage themselves.

Right. Scott? So, Julia, I love your work. So, we were talking about Palantir. I want to make a thesis or put forward a thesis and have you respond to Palantir. All of the calories, the skilled sociopathy of Facebook with none of the great taste, none of the profits. Your turn. That's actually extremely good. Yeah. Palantir is so funny because it's sort of the boogeyman. People talk about it as if it's really evil, but it's really just a user interface to make data look pretty.

And so it's the data underneath it, right? It's used by ICE, right? That's the problem, not so much the fact that data looks pretty for ICE, but that ICE has actually got an algorithm for who they want to deport is the problem. I mean, isn't it just a shitty version of Tableau with a lack of diversification around client base and a terrible business? You follow. What do you think happens to Palantir in their direct listing and what it says about the market?

I mean, honestly, federal contracting is always a great business, right? Like the thing is the bar is low, the tech expertise is low. And so they walk into Washington and, you know, that is unfortunately a real theme of this administration is, you know, you know, administration officials pocketing money in themselves. And so for their businesses. And so we do see like, it's part of that increasing sort of corruption, the real swamp, as you might say, about D.C., where why would Palantir go into any other business with such low-hanging fruit? Yeah, but the fruit doesn't seem to be that ripe.

It's been around for 17 years and three administrations and can't figure out a way not to hemorrhage cash. I like that idea of a revolving door just as lobbyists or just as elected representatives go to work for lobbyists. It feels like there's a revolving door here where a lot of senior CIA officials go to Palantir, get options and are hoping to cash in with by bringing government contracts. Is that is that not an accurate depiction of what's going on there? I mean, I haven't actually followed every personnel move, but I'm sure you're right because that's how these places hire. Overall, Julia, how did the Trump administration change the landscape in tech and business?

You know, has your reporting focus, I mean, because this was something you already focused on, privacy, right? This was pre-Trump and stuff. Has it changed or what is accelerating when you look at the stuff you're looking at? And then I want you to talk about the privacy tool. But first, how do you look at overall the landscape? Well, I guess I would say that there was some thought, you know, not really a huge amount of thought, but maybe in the Obama administration, the tech companies might have been a little bit scared of regulation. There was some talk about privacy law and this and that, you know.

And now I think there's just this idea that it's definitely a business free-for-all. This administration is hands-off. And so I think there's a feeling that they aren't afraid that we're going to match the GDPR, for instance, and force them to comply with strict data privacy rules. In fact, I think what's happening right now in DC is an attempt to weaken the California privacy law through some federal legislation. So it's going the opposite way. So I think for the companies that spend their life, you know, being a little bit afraid of regulation, they're definitely feeling like they're in the clear right now. And talk about this privacy tool you're doing. Yeah. So we're coming out with this

tool. It's called Blacklight. And it is essentially what... Oh, it sounds scary. It is. It's cool. I think of it as a meat thermometer that you can stick into any website and you can find out how creepy it is. So it basically, you type in any URL and it will run a bunch of tests

right at that moment live on that website and tell you, are they logging your key strokes? Who are they sending data to? Are they watching your mouse movements and scroll movements? That's a real trend these days, by the way, monitoring your mouse actions. And then there's like techniques that are meant to block people who block cookies. There's new techniques about like how they track you anyways. So we can diagnose all of those things. So we have like an instant diagnostic tool that we can sort of use to assess. And then what do you do? Is there, and then offer blocking technology to be able to stop that or just, you know? It's more about, you know, you know, there's different things you can do to block different parts of these things, but there's, there's not any tool that blocks all of these things. Right. So it's more about just, it's an opportunity, I think, for

people to check, you know, your kids, everyone's being sent to all of this online remote learning stuff. You know, the first thing I did with this tool was go look and see what are those educational websites? What, what are they collecting about kids, right? Because that is, I think, where privacy reporting can't reach that far down into the, you know, we can look at the big sites and see what's happening, but this is a tool for anyone to look at their local church. So what did you find? What did you find? What was something surprising that you found? Well, we found a lot of things. You know, one of the things I think is actually the most surprising thing is that I didn't realize how prevalent Facebook's tracking had become.

So we found them on one third of websites. And what that means is that when you're browsing the web, you know, we're all used to the idea that like they're tracking you, but it always sort of felt a little bit like it was slightly anonymous, right? Cause it's just a cookie and it's an ID number, but Facebook actually knows your name. Right. And not only that, um, even if you're not logged in, um, this, their pixel that is on one third of websites, oftentimes they have other ways to, they have the, the website agrees to send them your name if you're not logged into facebook so they actually know the identities of more people browsing the web than i expected and that's a huge change from when tracking used to be supposedly anonymous wow scott so i'm curious

what what do you think when you look at all of these companies? So we always talk about Google. We talk about Facebook. We talk about Amazon. Which do you find is the greatest threat to our democracy? And also, are there other companies or is there any one company that we should be keeping our eye on that doesn't get any attention? Gosh, it's so hard to choose between all of them. I mean, I feel like... The answer is yes.

What about one that's better? How about that? Well, you know, look, Apple has done a better job, at least on privacy. They do. But, you know, they're rapacious, right? They take 30% cut of money on the App Store. So, you know, it's not clear to me that that's actually like,

quote, good. But I mean, I think it's hard to argue with the premise that Facebook has really brought, has lowered the bar, right? And everyone's had to race to meet them at the bottom, right? Because they were the ones who decided that micro-targeting by name, by all these incredibly sensitive attributes was okay. They popularized that. They made that the centerpiece of their business. And the others, Google and lesser extent Amazon, have raced to meet them there, right?

And that doesn't, the micro-targeting isn't just a privacy issue. As we have seen, it's actually a democracy issue because they can, now politicians can micro-target their messages and they can micro-target lies to the most vulnerable people. So that particular aspect of micro-targeting is, I think, so pernicious. And so last question about this, it's available. Anybody can download it. It sits what on in the browser.

Yeah. It's just at the markup.org back backslash blacklight. Right. And you can go visit and just type in any URL. I personally, my favorite is goop. I highly recommend checking out. What are they doing to us?

What? What are they doing to us is Gwyneth Paltrow doing to us? What? What is she doing to us? Yeah. Tell us. They're definitely telling Facebook that you're there, but they monitor your keystrokes. What? Yeah.

Why does Gwyneth Paltrow need to know my keystrokes when I'm buying, you know, a cashmere pashmina for Scott or, you know, sheep's firm facial stuff? Download, watch, stream Contagion 1. Gwyneth Paltrow dies a hideous death. It is so rewarding. Okay, now stop. No, no, not nice.

Not nice, not necessary. It's so rewarding. Not necessary. No, we can just like dinger for this. We're not going to hope for it. No, no, no, no, no, no. $2.99 on iTunes right now. Let me just tell you, why do they need to know your key?

I'm ignoring this man. Why do they need to know your keystrokes? Why does Goop need to know your keystrokes besides giving you bad information about how they're going to cure cancer or whatever? Yes. Websites are getting more greedy about wanting to know if you were thinking of buying something. Maybe you were going to type in something and then you change your mind. I'm sure you've all received those emails. Like we saw you on our website.

Yeah. Didn't you want to stay? Yeah. So a lot of that stuff is related to the attempt to sort of like creepily stalk you later. But the problem is it's not just going to go, but it's going to a third party that they've hired to collect all this data.

And as we know, that stuff never stays in those, they lose it, they sell it to somebody else, you know, the endless monetization of our data. Yep. All right. Julia, when do you, how do you get it? How do you get the thing? markup.org backslash blacklight. Blacklight. It sounds so sinister. Okay. Is there an actual meat thermometer that you could stick in some internet people? That's our next one. Next one. All right, Julia, thank you so much. Again, it's Blacklight from The Markup. Thank you. Ciao. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. And fail. powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now,

it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy? Marketing. And when you're starting your small business, while you're so focused on the day-to-day, the personnel, and the finances, marketing is the last thing on your mind. But if customers don't know about you, the rest of it doesn't really matter. Luckily, there's Constant Contact. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform can help your businesses stand out, stay top of mind, and see big results. Sell more, raise more, and build more genuine relationships with your audience through a suite of digital marketing tools made to fast-track your growth.

With Constant Contact, you can get email marketing that helps you create and send the perfect email to every customer and create, promote, and manage your events with ease all in one place. Get all the automation, integration, and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly. All backed by Constant Contact's expert live customer support. Ready, set, grow. Go to constantcontact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to constantcontact.ca for your free trial. Constantcontact.ca. Okay, Scott, wins and fails. I got things to do. I want to hear your wins and fails. What are your wins and fails? My win is the documentary, The Vow. A, it's well done and interesting and an interesting story, but it's just fascinating to think about. What's it about? Well, it's about the cult. I

don't even know how to pronounce it, but basically a guy preyed on this very human instinct and that is we want to be loved we want to improve ourselves we want to be self-actualized and these cults start off you know most cults start off well they start off with good intentions and it just sort of takes you through the minds oh it's nexium yeah and again and you start to really understand at least it's so easy to be very judgmental about cults and just think, okay, these people are crazy. No, they're not. A lot of them aren't crazy. A lot of them have very productive lives and are looking to improve themselves.

And I think even some of the people initially involved in the foundation of it seem like decent people. And it's just interesting how these things come off the tracks and how power corrupts and you start believing you're a Jesus-like figure. But it's an interesting documentary i don't even think of it as a documentary on nexamer cult but a documentary on humans and our desire our desire to improve ourselves and how it can just kind of come off the tracks anyways my and it's on hbo hbo diet soda hbo economy comfort you know whatever they call it hbo max, HBO White. Here's the thing. These cults are fascinating. There's one every couple of years that you just sort of remember the Hale-Bopp people, the ones who were in the sneakers and they committed suicide, or Jim Jones, speaking of San Francisco.

I'm always fascinated, like, how does this happen? But you're right. I mean, I had a friend whose sister was in, you remember the cult? They were worshipping jewels. I don't remember that one in New York. It was all beautiful models. Worshipping jewels. Do you remember that one?

There was another one. They worshipped jewelry, like beautiful diamonds. And it was all made up of really, it was sort of in the fashion industry. That's who they were targeting. And her sister was in it. And I ran into her in the street, and she was telling me about her sister was in it i ran into her in the street and she was telling me about her sister was in it and this was a terrible cult and she had been become part of it and i ran into her six months and she's gonna go in and get her that's what

she was gonna go do and i ran into her six months later i'm like hey did that work out and she was like oh no i they were right she she became part of the car yeah i went in and stayed yeah she oh i was wrong about the whole thing i I was like, oh, thanks. And then end up this person, this cult leader got arrested for doing all kinds of shitty stuff and illegal stuff. And it was really mostly sexual

and all kinds of stuff. And it was sort of, I was sort of fascinated by it. It was sort of like, how does that happen? And people who are experts on cults have told me various techniques like love bombing.

What does that mean? I can get you into call would they what they do is they get you there it was that one cult that would bring everybody in what was it there was another cult that was super people were really going after in the in the 90s i guess um it was i can't remember but it was one of them and um they they'll invite you to a party you don't know who's in the cult and who isn't and when you're at this party they start saying how great you are. And everyone around you starts this technique of cults, I guess, where you just surround someone and tell them how great they are. And people don't get a lot of like that in life. It goes back to this basic strategy.

The easiest way to get someone to like you is to like them. Scott, you are beautiful. Like, how did you get how did your brain get so big that's not called this that's a good judgment that's a good judgment i can call me and i was thinking i was literally thinking that you look nice but i didn't want to sound like a sexist and say oh you look nice i'll just say you are especially articulate today your leadership skills by the way what was julie what was julia angler talking about black light is that the new lighting system at the new gay club in fort lauderdale sway from caris swisher

sway sway all right okay that is your win what's your fail my fail is i'm super into this idea of the other side of the coin and that we focus on reforming big tech or women at work or women's behavior work when we should be focused on reforming the government or regulatory industries, reforming the workplace. And the other one is I'm just sick of indignance from the Democratic Party leadership. Everyone was just so over the weekend. We're just so outraged. I'm like, you know what? My preference is to get Democratic leadership in the Senate that is seen as the bad guys and let them be outraged for a change. I hope AOC primaries Chuck Schumer. I'm just so sick of being outraged and being outplayed. What does Chuck Schumer do with his junior senator? They decide to show

leadership and kick Al Franken out of the Senate. How's that working for senator? They decide to show leadership and kick Al Franken out of the Senate. How's that working for us? We decide to disarm unilaterally. I mean, how's that working? Who would be a more effective voice right now? Because there's one group that really is going to go to the mat, no matter how hypocritical they are. And there's others that fret about hypocrisy. You're right. There is. Well, I'm sick of being right. I want to be effective. I hope AOC brings some young gangsters up in the Democratic leadership and start being so indignant. She does not mind. She gets indignant. You should see her. Some of her stuff is quite indignant, but she's effectively indignant. She comes back at them and she shames them and she gets popular vote on her side. That's what you've got to do.

She gets the media on her side. Yep, I agree. Anyway, I'm done being right. Let's be effective. AOC should primary trial. When you watch the tape of Lindsey Graham, you know, saying one thing and then something else, and he tries to pretzel himself. I would rather him just say that I'm a fatuous suck up to power. And I just am going to do it because I'm a liar. Like I would just, I'd rather have, come on, that would be my fail. Leadership in the Senate. I'd rather have leadership in the Senate that gets his, his opponent another 20 or $30 million

in the last 40 days of the election. You still can be angry about this fatuous Pop and Jay who continues. We're long on anger. I don't care. I don't care. He's still like awful. Just like, I'm sorry, we can take a moment to say, because he has an actual video saying the opposite. We agree.

And it's okay to go, what a liar. What a, what a, what a. Okay, let's get him out of it. Let's get him out of office. Let's get him out. But we can also, I think it's effective to get him out of office by continuing to point up his suck-uppery. I think it's an effective political tool to say suck.

I just, you know, it's just also just so, speaking now, now you got me on the indignant train. What is just so nauseating is to hear these old white guys. White guys, yeah, they were all on TV. Immediately start with their honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And then how can you honor somebody and say she was a friend or such tremendous respect for her life and then say, but I'm absolutely going to ignore her dying wish.

Yeah. I just don't give a shit what this hero of mine said was her dying wish. I agree. That's another thing. I agree. It's like, you know what? Just come out and say, you have absolutely no respect for this woman, that you're all about doing what, returning back whatever she was fighting for. Exactly. Don't pretend you have any respect for her. You, none of you people you people could open a door for her. You people, I'm triggered. Could open a door for that woman. She is the win of all time.

She deserves every accolade she gets. And you don't say that often about someone. And just a wonderful spirit, wonderful spirit, because she was always kind. Have you seen the woman that Trump is thinking about replacing her with or whose top pick is? Yeah, I saw. The woman who said that the law is just a means to serving the kingdom of

God. Oh my God. All right, Scott, another fantastic show. We'll be back here Thursday. I'm sure tons of stuff would happening. I will be taping 17 more sways.

Well, between then and now, but before we go, I'm not telling you. I'm not telling you. You're not telling me? Yeah, there's a lot. There are people you know. There are people you know. Not you know personally. No, of course, you would never know any of these people personally.

Anyway, before we go, a big part of what makes our show special is you, our listeners. That's why we'd like to help you plan our future by filling out a short survey. Your responses will help us understand who's listening, how you're listening, habits of change in the past few minutes, and hopefully how we can reach even more people.

Go to voxmedia.com slash podsurvey. That's voxmedia.com slash podsurvey and give five stars to Kara. Okay, Scott, read us out. Today's episode was produced by Camila Salazar. Our engineer is Fernando Finite. Special thanks to Drew Burrows and our executive producer is Erica Anderson. If you like what you heard, please download or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. What did RBG say, Cara?

She said, find ways to get things done or disagree with people in a manner such that it makes it easy for them to come to your side. I think we need more of that. I think we need more cordiality. I think we need more respect for people at different viewpoints such that if and when you are right, you make it easy for them to jump on and join hands with us. RBG, what a gangster. What a gangster, Kara. What a nice moment for us to reflect on her achievements and her dignity and her grace

and hopefully fight for her. Her last wish, her fervent last wish, and that is the next president would pick her replacement. We're going to fight for that, Kara. Aren't we going to fight for that? We're going to fight for that. We are going to fight for that. No notorious RBG. We love you.

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