Pivot - Tim Cook takes the stand in Apple vs. Epic trial and a Friend of Pivot on app dating

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about Apple CEO Tim Cook's testimony in the final days of the Apple vs. Epic antitrust case. Scott gives a mini-lesson on why "big is bad". Then we're joined by Friend of Pivot, author Nancy Jo Sales to talk about her new book Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno. They discuss the pros, cons, and pitfalls of dating apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. and it's called Guess Which Guest Was On Pivot. Okay, so as you may or may not know, Kara has another podcast. It's not doing very well. It's a bit of a thud, but it's called Sway and it's from, I think it's from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Yeah. Anyways, so I'm going to name three people and I want you to guess which guest did Kara get for Pivot versus Sway. Okay. CEO of Apple, Tim Cook. Yeah. CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk.

Yeah. Or the COO of DoorDash. Which one was on Pivot? Which one was on Pivot? One guess, Kara. Who did you get for Pivot? We could have gotten the CEO of DoorDash for Pivot. Let's keep playing.

This is getting good. Okay. All right. Keep going. Okay. Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. I haven't had her on yet. Senator.

Just go with it. This is my fucking game. Okay. Senator Elizabeth Warren. She is coming on. Okay. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Or Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the SEC.

Who was on Pivot? None of them. Who was on Pivot? None of them. Okay. And so you have Evan Spiegel. You had Evan Spiegel last week on Pivot. I did this week, yeah.

That was a good one. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. You had him on Sway. Sway. He was on Sway, yeah. He wrote me a thank you note. He wrote me a thank you note. A hand thank you note.

Those glasses are not a joke. They're for creators. They're not for users. But Evans Spiegel actually writes people hand. Look at this. He sent me a note. He sent you a note. He's dreamy.

He's dreamy. I can't believe he writes thank you notes, but look, you don't believe me. Evans Spiegel. See? So what's with the deal with those IMDbo glasses? Okay, so it's really interesting. You know they tried to do spectacles before where you just took pictures using these yellow glasses. So what's with the deal with those IMDbo glasses? Okay, so it's really interesting. You know they tried to do spectacles before where you just took pictures using these yellow glasses.

They were cool. They were kind of cool. But he said that they had a better uptake than I think they had. They certainly didn't sweep the world, I'll tell you that. But he's been interested in this idea of how to collect stuff as you move through the world. And so this is his move into AR you know, AR really pretty much. And so there's a lot of activity and what they're going to do is do all this AR stuff where, so I was like in my backyard, I could see the planet swirling around my backyard and you look with these glasses. And so they're not for users, they're for creators to start to create these

AR experiences. Then they will have a product for consumers, which is going to be, he said, up to 10 years away. So they're trying to sort of seed the world with this AR material that then could be used by consumers eventually. And so that's who they're for. And it's a jump from filters. You know, they sort of popularize filters at the company. That's what it's about.

It's a popularization. It's another step in that. So it's, you know, it's a big swing for the fences for him as usual. So in any case, he was on sway. He was on sway. That's true. That makes sense. Mark Zuckerberg said that one of the greatest technological challenges is trying to figure out a way to get a supercomputer on something people put on people's faces yeah that that's going to be that's still an enormous challenge yep anyways it is but i have to say it was beautifully done because it is and you don't wait those are for people just making things and then

they have a pretty cool software thing and they're going to take the people who make all those filters and they're going to help fund them and figure out it's a great idea as usual from snap anyway he's been doing really well. But first, let me give you, I know that you feel neglected because all my major people are on the other platform, my other family. But a prediction has come true. The Securities and Exchange Chief, Gary Gensler,

said the federal financial regulators should be ready to bring cases against bad actors in crypto and other emerging technologies. So they're not going to be ignoring that. So who is the first case do you think Gary Gensel will bring? He's got a good reputation, I'll tell you that.

Preet Bharara loves him. Yeah, and he's a comer. I think he was a partner at Goldman and he strikes me as somebody who wants to make a mark. Yeah. So I think he sees crypto as sort of his legacy. But I actually think it's good for the crypto markets. I think a certain amount of regulation.

And I don't know if you've seen, I was looking at the markets today. So you had this huge check back in crypto. And Mark Cuban called it the great unwind.. I'm like, not really. I mean, the markets have sort of, the crypto markets have sort of fallen back to, or dropped or plummeted to like March levels. They're still way up for the year. And if you look to their credit as a market, the elasticity or the resilience, ether is up 800 bucks today.

So I think some guardrails, some regulation is actually probably going to be pretty welcomed by most of the, I think most of the serious players in crypto. Would you put money in crypto right now? I am putting money in crypto or specifically I'm putting money, I feel as if I have this crazy FOMO. One of my many shortcomings as an investor is I like to buy stuff on sale. And so when Michael Saylor told me to buy crypto or Bitcoin, it was at 18,000. I said, okay, I'll definitely buy it when it dips below 15. And it skyrocketed up to 60. And now that it's back to whatever it is, 30 something, I'm sort of thinking about what I've decided instead of trying to buy a coin, I'm going to invest in the picks and shovels. And I'm investing in a company called Ledger, which is cold storage hardware wallets. It's supposedly 10% by dollar volume of all crypto is stored on this hardware wallet. And so I'm investing in the picks and shovels. Who has the hardware wallets? Well, anyone who wants to take advantage of the

decentralized nature of crypto and doesn't want it on a platform that can be hacked. So the idea of security. If you put this in like a safety deposit box? It feels like a very elegant Apple meets USB drive and it's not connected to the internet. So it's cold storage means that there's less chance of that actor of it being hacked because it's literally off the grid. Yeah. And you have, and with crypto, you know, people. So you have a device?

It's a device. Yeah. It looks like if Apple made a USB. Okay. You can plug it in and then you can trade and store and distribute. It's basically for the distribution and storage of this asset. But you could lose it. Yeah, but there's means.

My understanding is there's means of backing it up and things like that. It's basically a more elegant way of storing an asset in a more secure way. Anyways, I'm investing. It sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, Chester Yanksy, but I want to invest in Levi's as opposed to the mine. Levi's is a company that built the denim. Picks and shovels is the strategy I'm going with because I just don't have the mine. Levi Strauss and company built the denim. And picks and shovels is the strategy I'm going with because I just don't have the stomach. You also don't like Coinbase though

because you think the fees and everything else are ridiculous. Yeah, but I think Coinbase, and the analogy we use is AOL. I think it's the great initial on-ramp into the world of crypto. But I don't, and they have the capital. It'll be interesting to see what kind of moats they build to build some sort of differentiation.

But right now, as far as I can tell, it's just a retail on-ramp into crypto with exorbitant commission structures where their margins will come under attack. Yeah, that's true. And it's overvalued. I just don't think it's worth the value of General Motors right now. But you're not buying coin itself. I'm a no-coiner. I've never purchased a coin. No-coiner.

I'm a no-coiner. Are you a no-coiner? But you're a vaxxer. You're a no-coiner. I've never purchased a coin. No-coiner. I'm a no-coiner. Are you a no-coiner? But you're a vaxxer. You're a no-coiner vaxxer. I am vaxxed and unwaxed. As we know. We've seen that picture. So another one, speaking of all these little expressions, SPACs may be going out of fashion. The Wall Street Journal's reporting reluctance

of startups to use with IPO. With SPACs, the numbers are down 12%, I think, since May. Again, this was something that was, oh, there were tons of people running into the space, lots of people we know, including, I think, you. What think you of this situation of Wall Street? Again, another thing that I'm sure the SEC will be looking at strongly also. Yeah, look, there seems to be a pattern across every major technology innovation class or financial innovation, whether it's junk bonds, the internet, or SPACs, and that is the innovation comes along. It's very exciting. A lot of the early movers,

the early pioneers make a lot of money. It attracts a massive amount of capital. The market gets out over its skis, and then there's a bit of a crash slash correction. But coming out of it, you find there are enduring companies. Junk bonds are a static part and an important part of our financial markets. Amazon was birthed from the dot-com and the dot-bomb generation. And I do think SPACs are going to be a static part of the financial ecosystem. It's just that we have, I think, 270 SPACs searching for a company right now. It's a great time to be a seller. And you have, I think, the majority of SPACs searching for a company right now. It's a great time to be a seller. And you have, I think the majority of SPACs that are publicly traded are more than 50% off their highs. And this is just, there's just no getting around it. SPACs, in addition to being a financing event

where you get to go be public sooner, they've had to reach further into the barrel and find companies that weren't sort of ready for prime time. And the market, it's not even the SPAC market that's tightening, it's the pipe market. Because to buy a company, you have to get bolt-on or staple-on debt financing in the form of a pipe. And they're the adults in the room going, sorry, this just doesn't hold water. And a lot of these companies, typically when you go public, you go public knowing that your next two quarters numbers are kind of baked. You know they're going to be good or exceed expectations. And with these companies, a lot of them, their projections are already missing. But so the bottom line is, it's a great time to be a seller.

And when you think about this, Cara, the interesting thing about SPACs is that from the moment they SPAC, they have 24 months to do a deal or they have to give their money back and the sponsors have to come up with about 10 million bucks or two to 4% of the gross proceeds and then they lose it all. So you're about to see, I mean, I'm on about four company boards and I get an inbound from someone looking to do SPAC probably every 48 hours, and their desperation is only going to grow because it's not even 24 months. If a SPAC doesn't de-SPAC within six months, it begins to smell. And so you're going to have probably, I mean, I think the number's

something like $70 to $100 billion. So these are inbound of looking to buy your companies? Heard you're going on the board of OpenWeb. We would like, we're a SPAC. I mean, that one I'm getting every 48 hours. Yeah, and what do you say? What is it you actually say to them then? I give them the name and I give them the email address of the CEO and say that at this point,

we're just looking to build a great company. We're not looking to SPAC. But I pass them on to the CEO. Right. So, but the level of desperation, and these are credible SPACs with very credible operating groups. But the number of – So give the case why you would and why you wouldn't. Well, so I'm – okay, I'll tell you about a company I'm involved in that is SPACing.

I'm an investor in Better Mortgage, which is a company founded by this kind of this tech genius named Vishal Garg that has said, all right, there's 200 intermediate steps between applying for a mortgage and getting approved for one. There are indeed. That involve humans and regulation and paper and unfortunately, sometimes systemic racism. if we can use technology and AI to collapse the supply chain, I can get a mortgage approved in 40% of the time and pass all of those savings back to the borrower. And literally the level of business they're doing and the productivity per employee is off the charts. And there's a company doing billions of dollars. And then a SPAC came along and said, we want to do this. And the most attractive thing about the SPAC that we, or that they, I'm not on the board, I'm just an investor. And the reason

they agreed to it was that SoftBank showed up and said, we will do the pipe. And so this means that the SPAC will get done. It means it's credible. And also it shortens your time to market, your time to a public company, because they have already done a lot of the SEC funds. So basically it's time to market. You get to take advantage of a good market. You get your sort of just add water IPO. And the reason not to do it is that if you're building a company and feel like you're not ready to go public and you want to go and you build, you feel like you're really building an enduring company, and you feel as if you have the option and don't necessarily feel the need to get out right now, going traditionally through a J.P. Morgan or Goldman, those companies, the way I would describe it, the whole world goes iOS or Android.

And if J.P. Morgan or Goldman take you public via traditional IPO, you're sort of the iOS, whereas Android is the guy spacking right now. And that's not to say that they're not great companies. Yeah, I agree. It's time to market. What are your thoughts? I think the pipe is critically important. This is private investment and public equity commitment. So it shows that someone believes in it. That's really pretty much the pipe and it gives them money to do things with. And without it, it makes it much harder. So it's a private investment in public equity when they do a SPAC

and then they have some room to breathe. I don't know. I think it's just, I think one of the things that's shown is the IPO process, like your mortgage process you just described, is slow and onerous and problematic. And so how to get people cashed out,

how you get these startups into a position where they're liquid is a really interesting one. So, I think people are like, SPAC, SPAC, SPAC. Oh, now they're terrible. I think probably the truth is right in the middle. Somewhere in the middle. That's what I said. Right in the middle.

Overcorrection on both. Yeah, exactly. The pendulum is never in the middle. But, you know, when like Paul Ryan had a SPAC, I don't even know if he managed to land it somewhere. I was like, huh, why is he there? Like, I just remember being like, you know, Joanna Coles, I got, you know, I'm okay. I got that. But Paul Ryan, I was like, I don't think so.

But what will be interesting though, is in three to six months when some of these SPACs start lapping their one year anniversary, which means they now have a gun to the head, you are going to see panic at the disco. Possibly. I mean, it's going to be very interesting to see what these, how desperate these companies and what, and the companies they are willing to see panic at the disco. Possibly. I mean, it's going to be very interesting to see how desperate these companies are. And the companies they are willing to SPAC with. It's going to be interesting. I wouldn't just take any old SPAC. That's all I'm saying.

Not any old SPAC. Okay, time for Big Story. Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stand on Friday in the Apple versus Epic Games antitrust trial. Epic makes it an epic trial about Epic and Apple. The trial will wrap this week. Reminder, Epic Games is known for popular game Fortnite. Sued Apple claiming that the company had created a monopoly in its app store and uses power to make unfair cut from other companies. Apple currently holds dominance over the $100 billion app market that could change depending on how the trial turns out.

Tim Cook laid out, he was quite right out there, laid out Apple's high-minded values around privacy in the defense, but he also gave a lot of information about the company. Privacy, from our point of view, is one of the most important issues

of the century, and safety and security are the foundation of privacy. It's built upon technology as the ability to vacuum all kinds of data from people, and we like to provide tools to circumvent that.

That said, not everybody, you know, he did lay out a lot of stuff. Apple's facing similar lawsuits from federal regulators, the European Union, other class action suits will be affected by the outcome of this trial. So what do you think, Scott? And she's kind of asking questions right in the middle. I wouldn't say she's pro-EPIC by any stretch of the imagination, but she's not anti. She's not pro-Apple either. It's interesting. She's asking sort of down the middle questions again. Yeah, this will be very interesting. And I need to make another disclosure. I'm an investor in EPIC. Oh, okay. Wow. What aren't you an investor in? Chipotle, the company I love, the one I couldn't get into. So, look, this will be very interesting.

It'll set the tone for a lot of antitrust. But this is – they have monopoly power. And it's not to say they didn't deserve it. People always look at it through the lens of, well, did they earn it? Yeah, they earned it. Congratulations. But that doesn't mean we don't go in and break it up. I mean, we sort of – we've become so strange around forgetting our legacy of antitrust.

We act as if they have to be bad people or doing something wrong. It's like, no, we just make a concerted evaluation and decision that at a certain point, a company earned or not, if it has monopoly power, it begins to reduce competition and results in a level of negative externalities that are just bad for the economy and bad for job growth and bad for the tax base. And I think that we're at that point with iOS. I'm shocked that they aren't getting out ahead of this and lowering the fees.

I think at 30%, it just feels kind of rich. Yeah, he does. So I'm shocked they're not trying to get out ahead. But his go-to is we've made these huge investments in privacy. I think what will be interesting is to say, okay, what percentage of your revenue— How much money should you get? Yeah. What percentage of your top-line revenue is having really invested in privacy?

Does that warrant a 30% tax on this stuff? It's interesting. They had a lot of experts. They had MIT economists. They had Stanford economists. They had University of Michigan economists. There were all kinds of people arguing the whole thing. And I thought the judge handled it well. So, Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers is the judge in this case,

is really not on anybody's side here. She gave, like, she smacked Epic a little bit around substitutes, saying there is, you know, there's other places. Your formulation seems to ignore the reality that customers choose an ecosystem. There's a lot of evidence to trial the for-market of devices. It is Apple's business ready to create a particular kind of ecosystem. So it's interesting. That looked like she was leaning Apple's way. And then the attorney representing Apple was making some points. And Roger said, I guess you were saying this qualitatively.

The price has gone down, but it hasn't gone down to justify super competitive profits, which is the point you were making here. So I don't know what she thinks, honestly, I have to say. She's sort of making a good point on one hand, on the other hand kind of thing. It could take months, but nonetheless. Lots of good judges are supposed to do, right? Yeah. So, I think it's super interesting, and it'll set the tone for a lot of stuff because it just strikes me that they become so powerful in that ecosystem that it's one of two things. Either big is good and makes sense and you need to have scale to make the requisite

investments in security and safety, which means, quite frankly, it's a utility and should be regulated. Or we'd all benefit if Epic and other people could charge a lower fee for their own in-app purchases. I think it's just very difficult to make the argument that this level of concentration of power is good, but we're not a utility. So I think that's a very difficult needle to thread. Yeah. I think she's going to do something interesting. Her questions were great. I have to say, I was like, huh, those are the questions I would ask.

great. I have to say, I was like, huh, those are the questions I would ask. And she said, if I decide relevant market is gaming, but there are other factors showing anti-competitive conduct, how would that impact your analysis? She asked Apple at one point. And the lawyer said, that would make me very sad. I just was like, she kind of stuck it to everybody in a lot of ways. Like she sort of cut holes throughout their whole, both of the sides. You know, everybody tries to make their little case of everything. And I think she was asking the right questions. It'll be interesting. I think she'll probably maybe go for a settlement of some sort. But, you know, the real fight Apple's facing is with Spotify.

I mean, because they're in actual competition. In this case, it's about payments, right? And a little bit of data, essentially. Like, what do you have to pay? And what's the toll of this road, it's about payments, right? And a little bit of data, essentially. Like, what do you have to pay? And what's the toll of this road, essentially? And the judge also had him address App Store profits that seemed disproportionate. That's what she was saying, disproportionate. But I think the issue will be Spotify.

This is not over by any stretch for Cook or Apple if they win. I don't think there's a win here at all for anybody, pretty much. Well, I don't know if he did it on your show, but Barry Diller made an interesting point. And that was, all right, look at the infrastructure that the credit cards put in place. They're ubiquitous. They make massive investments in security and technology such that anywhere in the world you can pull out your MasterCard or your Amex or your Visa. It's basically a triopoly. Run it, and they figure out a way to process and transfer money and put the promise of money securely and safely. And in exchange for that, they charge 2% to 3% of the transaction. So Apple is everywhere, safe, secure transactions,

but they're taking 30%. And it's not even the fees that struck me. It's the scope or the breadth of them. If you look at every streaming video platform, I don't care if it's Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, somewhere between like 3% or 4% and 12% and 15% of their top-line revenues, which probably translates to a third of their profits, go to Apple. Because anyone who's downloading an app to play any streaming service- It's a good business. It's a really good business.

It's a good business owning the rails, I'll tell you. Yeah. I mean, and we've talked about that. And actually, I argued that in my column for The Times this week, was like, you talk about discovery, AT&T together, it's not enough. Are you kidding? That's a tiny little nothing, like you said, a pimple on the ass of tech, essentially. I think that's what you said. Anyway, it's going to be an interesting case, but this is not far from over. We'll see where she goes. But I really did admire

Judge Rogers' questions. I thought she was quite sharp on both of them. And I love that. I love when a judge does that. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We'll be back to do a Scott mini lesson and talk to a friend of Pibbitt about app dating, one of your favorite topics. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank.

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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, we're back. You wanted to do a mini class today. You want to discuss why big is inherently bad or is it? So it is inherently bad. Big doesn't make sense. Let's have your lesson. Okay, well, let me just do

this. Professor Scott Galloway, take the stage. I want to be LA law. There we go. Look, so big isn't necessarily bad. It makes sense to have one US Navy. It makes sense to have one IRS. It makes sense probably to have US Navy. It makes sense to have one IRS. It makes sense probably to have one Florida Power and Light. And when we decide that we need scale and that it makes sense, we typically regulate those companies. And voters or regulators get to make sure that those companies aren't in fact abusing their size and their monopoly power. And if you look at what's happened in our economy over the last 30 years, the top 50 companies in the world added about $4.5 trillion of market capitalization in just the last year, making their combined net worth about a third of global GDP. Okay, so what do we have?

We have the top 50 companies massively leveraging their consolidation and power to increase their profitability, at the same time decreasing their tax rate. As you get more profitable, you can hire more lobbyists, we begin to fetishize innovators, and all of a sudden they're paying lesser taxes, meaning that future generations or smaller and medium-sized companies have to pay more. So what do they do? What do they do with all this additional capital? Republicans and the 900-person communications department at Facebook will say, well, actually we make these forward leaning investments in CapEx and Joe Kiernan and all the business apologists on CNBC will say, well, they make huge investments in our future growth, but that's not true.

This is what they do. The actual share of R&D has gone down. What they use that capital for is stock buybacks, which are good. They increase the share price, which increases the compensation of employees, but mostly the CEO who's seen his or her multiple on the average worker's salary go from 50 to 300 in the last decade. And actual R&D has gone down. In 1990, IBM was the world's largest publicly listed company and devoted 9% of its revenue to cap expenditures. And in 2020, the largest market cap company, Apple,

which is the Jesus Christ of every innovator's eye, their top, their spend in R&D is 3%. So R&D down, R&D down, employment down, new business formation down. The companies that have the greatest concentration of power, the sectors, whether it's computer hardware, search, or social, have an absolute collapse in new business formation. Why do we care? Is small good? It is good. Two-thirds of new jobs are created by small and medium-sized companies. And this is what you end up with as a consumer. On Saturday fucking morning, a guy shows up who was supposed to be at my house sometime between 12 and 4. They get to give you a four-hour window.

Doesn't show up and shows up Saturday morning at 8 a.m. banging on my door saying, Hi, I'm from Comcast here to fix your cable. I'm like, oh, you must be a monopoly because no other shithead was supposed to be here yesterday and not show up and then show up at 8 a.m. on Saturday and act like nothing is wrong. When an EpiPen goes up 1,100% because a company with cheap stock, because they've massively juiced their stock with share buybacks, goes and buys a smaller pharma company and then jacks up the price 1,100%, that's called a concentration in power. And then you look at the other side,100%. That's called a concentration in power. And then you look at the other side and you say, well, Scott, are breakups good?

Yeah, breakups are amazing. They're amazing. Point to a breakup where it didn't end up increasing jobs, increasing shareholder value, increasing tax base. Where are big good? I'm going to interrupt you. I'm the annoying student in the front row. Where is big good besides Oh, I think that— Besides the army and business. I was making the argument that media is too small now, even when you combine them, because it's not enough.

As you and I said last week. But this is the problem. What it leads to is it gets worse and worse. So my publisher, Penguin Portfolio Random House—and by the way, great branding, just rolls right off the tongue. They're now too big. But because we have these giant monopolies, we're letting little monopolies form because no one can logically say- That's what I'm trying to get out of you. Yes. Okay. Because no one can logically say, okay, let's keep Time Warner from being acquired by AT&T because they got to take on Google. Well, guess what? They probably shouldn't be allowed to merge, but they're facing a billion-strong player called

iOS and a three-billion-strong player called Android. So where does it help? In some places, we're like electricity grids. Even certain cable companies that have to make – if you have to make staggering, staggering CapEx, you can make an argument that a monopoly does make sense. And then we put a regulator in from the government to make sure that they're not jacking up the prices on low-income households, right? We make sure that they're behaving as a decent citizen. But these companies, this is what happens with these companies. They lower their capex, they take all of that cabbage, and they put it back into share buybacks, which guess what? Who owns 90% of American stocks by dollar volume?

The top 1%. So this is what we have. We have a destruction in jobs, a destruction in new business formation, a destruction in the tax base. Government gets overrun by lobbyists. We have a lack of new business formation. And we have fucking Comcast knocking on my door at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning. So and we have fucking Comcast knocking on my door at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning. So this is all about Comcast knocking on your door.

Big, look, big on its own is not necessarily bad. What we have allowed here, in terms of consolidation and power, is bad for every stakeholder except one, and that's the CEO who has seen their compensation skyrocket. And unfortunately, he or she in these dual-class shareholder structures gets to make the decision. The biggest tax cut on the American public,

whether it's a woman looking to get medication for her child with diabetes, whether it's someone looking for better cable, whether it's someone looking for more innovation in retail, the biggest tax cut on the American public would be to triple the budget of the DOJ and go in and start breaking all that shit up. I like it.

I like it, Scott. All right. Okay. What do you think is going to actually happen? Oh, I think it's starting. But I've been saying that for a while. All right. What do you think?

It's like your Twitter thing. I think in some cases, my God, I don't know how these media companies are going to fight Google. I made that argument in the column. I got to say. They got to bulk up like i i gotta say they gotta bulk up i agree they gotta bulk up and so what do you do if that's the case like they break up google that's right that is break up amazon's you regulate the app store yep that is fair that is fair it's just it's it's an almost intractable problem i have to say it's really quite i i don't quite know what to do about it, honestly. I'm like, we talked about that today on CNBC and everything, and I think you're right. I think it's sometimes big is better, but mini—I like your idea of mini-monopoly, Scott. I think that's quite brilliant, actually. Yeah, it's—

Anything else, Professor Galloway? No, look, the economy, two-thirds, small business. Do you know what percentage of new businesses are less than a year old? What? 7%. And during the Carter administration, it was 15%. So we like to make this cartoon about how wonderful small businesses are. You know what? We've decided we fucking hate small business.

Yeah, I would agree with that. We've decided we don't like innovators. We call the big companies innovators. You know where they focus the majority of their efforts? Tim Cook marching into a chamber to talk about why they should continue to extract 30% a year from app stores. Well, you know what? They're keeping us safe, Scott. From privacy or privacy. Yeah. And here. From privacy. Or privacy, yeah. And here's the thing. They're keeping us safe.

We act like it's a punishment. No, it's not. They're not bad people. The people around the aluminum companies weren't bad people. The people at AT&T weren't bad people. We look at it as a punishment. It's not a punishment. Congratulations.

You win. You've done an amazing job. Now we're breaking your ass up. And guess what? You're going to be worth more money. All right. Professor Galloway,'ve done an amazing job. Now we're breaking your ass up. And guess what? You're going to be worth more money. All right. Professor Galloway, that is an excellent lesson. The lessons of Scott.

There you go. Okay, Scott, thank you for that mini lesson. It was very exciting. But let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Nancy Jo Sales is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of a new book, Nothing Personal, My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno. Well, that's an image. She has also released the 2018 HBO documentary Swiped, Hooking Up in the Digital Age.

And she was the author of that very famous Vanity Fair story about Tinder. And she's here to answer all our questions about dating apps and about her book. Nancy Jo, thank you for coming on to Pivot. Thank you. Hi. So tell us about, you've been writing a lot about dating for many, many, many years. And it started with that Tinder piece that sort of got everybody all up in arms or hot and bothered, as you might say in the dating business. Talk about why you decided to do this and some aspects of what this book's about.

I did that article. It was viral. It caused a big kerfuffle, as you know, among the dating industry people, especially Tinder, which famously tweeted at me over 30 times in one night. They were so angry about that piece in 2015. times in one night they were so angry about that piece in 2015 and then um you know i was simultaneously doing a book about girls teenage girls and their uh social media use and it was a bit ahead of the curve in terms of looking at the harm of everything you know and not just celebrating it as like you know what the kids are doing. And while I was reporting all of that, I saw that dating was

changing very, very quickly. And I interviewed a research scientist at Kinsey who said that this is the biggest change in mating we've had in 15,000 years since the agricultural revolution. I mean, it's really unprecedented, but I think we're all just kind of like the frog in the pot and we don't always realize how much our behaviors and attitudes about dating and, you know, what the scientists call mating are changing. And, yeah, then I did the film and I did this book that just came out, nothing personal, My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno. I did this book because I had had all of these experiences of my own that I hadn't talked about. And also, I felt like still even with the film, which was on HBO, somehow the critique of dating that I hear from all of my sources, from young women and men too on Twitter, on social media, doesn't make it into the mainstream discussion that we're having now in TechLash about how, you know, tech companies need to be more accountable to their users. And it just hasn't translated into how we talk about Tinder and Bumble and Match Group. And it's really, I think, important to talk about because

they are, you know, they've done this sort of monopolization of one very central aspect of human life, which is intimacy. Right. This is Scott's wheelhouse, this idea of one about women and girls and how they feel about these and then these dating apps. Scott? Well, yeah. First off, it's nice to meet you, Nancy Jo. I think your work is really interesting, and there's not enough attention on kind of the, I don't know, I don't know what you call it, dating economy. The majority of your work, I think, really brings to light some of the misogyny or sort of hooking up culture and why that's bad for women. Particularly as weaponized by tech.

100%. Particularly as weaponized by tech. A hundred percent. What I don't think gets as much attention as it probably warrants, though, is it's also bad for men. Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. There sort of seems to be this – if you apply the Gini coefficient to mating inequality, there's greater mating inequality than there is income inequality. greater mating inequality than there is income inequality. And that Tinder showed that if you have a room of 100 people, 50 men and 50 women, four men get the attention of 46 of the women. The bottom line is women are much more discriminating than men. Men are much more inclined to swipe right than women. And doesn't it create sort of this mating inequality that is, I don't know, I guess bad for both parties?

I think it's bad for both parties, absolutely. And I talk about that a lot in my book, Nothing Personal. It's a very big theme in the book because it was through my own experience with dating mostly younger men, because when I went on Tinder, there weren't a lot of people my age. I went on my late 40s into my early 50s. I'm off now and all of these apps. But I was able to see firsthand through relationships, through dates, through hookups, how young men are affected by all of this. And one of the running characters in the book is actually a young man that I had a relationship with for several years. And we sort of watch his evolution from really honestly, fresh faced boy come to New York into raging fuck boy. And I hope it's clear that this is done with great sympathy, seeing how it was the effect of the technology, the access,

pornography, internet porn. He was a guy who grew up in a house in the deep south, very poor, had no internet access. It wasn't until he came to New York for a job, got a phone, then suddenly is on apps, watching porn. And it's all very, I think, interconnected. And he was also really challenged in the ways that a lot of young men, young millennial men are in terms of not being able to get a good job, make enough money, accrue assets and savings. So feeling really behind the eight ball in a lot of ways. And all of this played into, I think, how the dating app culture affected him in terms of something that he used as a recreational way to feel powerful. Well, except they're not, because one of the things I have noticed from everyone I know, including my own son who uses dating apps, we had a discussion about last night,

they feel bad. It feels powerless. Oh, yes. You know, which my friend who's gay uses all of them. He feels bad about it. Absolutely. My women friends who use it, they feel bad about it. My son who's young and handsome and feels young, you know, like should be like not feeling bad about dating feels bad about it. There's something inherent in it that... It makes everyone feel bad. It makes everyone feel exhausted. Why is that? Talk about the idea

of it because when you brought that up many years ago everyone was like, how dare you, Nancy Jo Sales. Like how, you're especially talking about how women get talked down to by men in a really negative way. And then at the same time, that men talk down, which is also debilitating to them, I think, even though fuck them. But at the same time, it's not a way to behave. There's no way to live. Well, let's look at the macro.

If you just take it away from men, women, people who identify in other ways, away from sexual orientation. If you just look at the macro of the business, the business model is engagement, right? Like as with all social media, the business model is engagement. It really doesn't matter if you're a man, a woman or whatever. It's just, they want you to engage with the app. So I think that the business model is flawed. I think it's a bad faith proposition to tell people, which they do. And in some countries, actually, their ads are banned because they're seen to be lies, because they promise scientifically, we're going to match you with the person of your dreams, or we're going to find you a soulmate.

But in this country, we just see these ads and we think like, oh, dating apps are my fairy godmother. I'm going to find my soulmate and ride off into the sunset. So that's the lie of the advertising. But the business model is actually engagement and addiction and constant, you know, endless swiping, etc., which is exhausting. That's a word that comes up a lot when I interview people about apps, men, women, whatever. It's exhausting. It's exhausting because I think it is labor.

It's unpaid labor. In fact, in a lot of cases, you are paying to labor for them. You are paying into their business model, which is that they get you hooked. You are swiping, swiping, swiping, giving data, answering questions, questionnaires, exchanging back and forth messages where you might mention things that you buy or places you've been. messages where you might mention things that you, you know, buy or places you've been. So, you know, these are, this is not a good faith proposition, I think, for anyone, man, woman, anyone. But to be fair, isn't somewhere between one and three and one and five marriages originating on a dating app? I mean, people are connecting for one and two. No, but those numbers are not right. No, that is not correct. No. Correct the record then. What is it? What percentage of marriages are people who did not need them? That is not correct. I don't know what data you're referring to, but the most

reliable data that we have is from Pew Research Center, which said in 2020 that 12% of Americans overall are, and this wasn't marriages, this was marriages or long-term commitments. And we don't even know from the data what long-term means, but marriages are long-term commitments. And we don't even know from the data what long-term means. But marriages are long-term commitments of Americans overall. And 39% of dating app users. So, I mean, you could say, well, that's 39%. But for businesses that promise to find you the man, woman, or whoever of your dreams, is 39% really enough? And also for the time that they get you in there and get you hooked, the amount of time that you're giving them,

if there was a COVID shot that had 39% efficacy, would you take it? Yeah. So 39% does not sound good to me. So what do you think is going to happen? Speaking of the pandemic, how did they change during the pandemic and how do you expect that to change

as people get vaccinated? I mean, just out this weekend, just in my neighborhood, it looked like mating season was on. It was crazy. And nice to see, I have to say. Everybody's saying that. It's really a curious thing, okay? Because here we are, we're on the precipice of what a lot of my friends in New York are saying is going to be like the 1920s. I mean, this is going to be like the summer of love or something. People are so excited to get out to start dating and meeting people in person again. You know, the dating apps have really,

disaster cap, you know, the way the dating apps use the pandemic was like a study in disaster capitalism, I think, because, you know, they, oh, all of a sudden, this was really, truly the only way to date. Unfortunately, I don't think that that's really going to change that much, because I think the addiction is real. I think the behaviors that they've, the social conditioning that they've done in which people feel less able to even talk to each other in person now, feel like this is quote unquote, the only way to date. I mean, even before the pandemic, I interviewed people who said, gay people, straight people, all kinds of people who said like, I will be in a bar and see someone across a room and I will go on Tinder to see if they're on Tinder or Grindr or something, right?

Like someone says that in my film. He's like, if I see a cute guy in a bar, I'll just go on Grindr and see if he's on Grindr. I won't go up and talk to him. So I think this is a real... Is there a right way to use these apps as a tool or is the design fundamentally flawed? Like these things should work in some way, right? It's like they're sort of not analog. There were analog versions of this before. So what, you know, whether they were ads. What do you think, what would you ask of these companies to make a healthier ecosystem around establishing productive, healthy relationships. Well, it's interesting because this guy who's a tech investor reached out to me on DM. He said he invests in dating apps and he read this kind of op-ed I did in The Guardian, you know,

before the publication of my book about all this. And he said, gee, I didn't know any of this. Well, you don't know about it because like the New York Times and people like that do not, oh, I'm sorry. I mean, New York Times does a lot of great reporting on a lot of things. But dating culture is not one of them. They tend to be very, it's modern love. It's, you know, it's cute. It's a cute meet, you know, and you're going to have a date with Timothée Chalamet and like clink rose, you know, rosé. It's hopeful.

Let's just say it's hopeful. Yeah, it's hopeful. It seems to be what they think people want to hear. And so I think that the harms, the like really serious harms, because you want to talk about data. We have serious data now on rape, sexual assault, harassing messages, dick pics, all this kind of stuff. And if this guy hasn't heard of it, it's not necessarily that surprising. Anyway, he said, what do we do? What do we do? I want to tell these places where I invest what to do to fix this. You know, I'm not a tech person. I'm a journalist and an author. Now I'm a memoirist. I'm trying to, you know, throw my own experience in there to make people feel seen. But I don't know the answers in terms of tech. I do know that there

are certain things about these platforms that I don't see how you can fix, like the male gaze being how men see women on these apps. But I do think there needs to be a radical reimagining of it. And I think the first step towards that is talking about what's really wrong with it and not pretending that just because Tinder or whoever, you know, donates some money to a sexual assault organization, which is good, please do that. They need your money. That doesn't change what's happening. Is there any site that is good?

Is Bumble? Well, let me just interject here. I went on Tinder, and I was really upset because I found that it deleted my account if I didn't mention hiking or dogs in my bio. And so I started going on Tinder just to find women who would share their HBO Go password. I felt like we needed a little levity. Didn't we need a little levity? Didn't we need a little levity? Come on. Well, dating is fun. Very little. No, we do. We do. Very little.

There are women who say that they, you know, they call it Tinder pizza. They get, they, yeah, well, that's going back years. I reported that they say that they, you know, they call it Tinder pizza. They get, they, yeah, well, that's going back years. I reported that they say that they get guys to send them pizza, you know, as like a way to talk to them. Like if you send a pizza to this address, I don't know how they're keeping them from knowing their addresses. But anyway, the Tinder pizza, you know, people use, that's, see, that's the problem.

That what you just say is a problem because I think that this is all- No, your joke is a problem, Scott. No, no, no. You're, no, no, no. That's a shocker. Nancy, don't keep going. Your joke is not a problem. You're not a problem.

You're wonderful. Thank you. What you mentioned, though, is the way that there are transactional things going on. Yeah, that's the really problem. There's a transactional nature of it. There's a lot of sex work, which I'm not, you know, dissing sex work. I'm just saying that this is, people who use these apps aren't necessarily going on there to, again, fall in love. They're going on there because they can't pay their rent and they need somebody to give them money for sex so that they can pay their rent.

There's people going on there because they hate women and they want to attack. Let me put out just around that because that's serious. Misogyny and technology that increases misogyny as we've seen across these other platforms is really ugly. I'm going to put forward a thesis and I think you're going to disprove it because I haven't done research around this, but I would think that similar to Airbnb and Uber, identity is really powerful. And when people go on these apps, is there some inclination to behave better? And are you safer to a certain extent on a dating app? Because quite frankly, the company knows who both parties are. There's identity involved. Has that not led to some good things? There is not safety on dating apps. I think there's less safety on dating apps than even in

person, like in random person. Well, it's virtually anonymous in a way. Also, they don't do anything to respond. I mean, ProPublica did a big, big story in 2019, and then they followed up with a couple in 2020 one even recently 2021 about how they they dating apps train their their uh workers this just came out a couple weeks ago to to spend four minutes four minutes tops talking to people about their sexual assault concerns four minutes like anybody who's a sexual assault survivor knows that's not enough time to talk to somebody when you have a problem and need to report it and talk to someone about it. So I don't think they're responding in the way that they should. I think they're doing the bare minimum.

For example, they just, there's a lot of, you know, criticism right now. People like me are coming out and saying stuff. And then in Australia, they've had a lot of consciousness raising around dating apps. They've had protests. Women, you know, not particularly about dating app protests, but connected to sexual assault, Me Too stuff. And they've had a lot of pressure in those countries. So, in New Zealand and Australia. So, Tinder now, last week said that they're going to do this thing where they're going to.

So, if you're, the AI will know if you're about to send a harassing message or a dick pic and have a little thing pop up on the screen that says, are you- Don't send a dick pic. No, no. I don't know why I find that funny. I apologize. Well, you're right to laugh. Is a minority reporter on dick pics? What is going to happen?

Hi, hi. Wait, wait. You are- Jeff Bezos, put the camera away. Right. Oh, my God. So you've hit you've world's colliding sorry you've you've hit the nail on the head or the dick on the head or something by saying by by by bringing up like somebody who's gonna send a dick pic isn't gonna cease because tinder says are you sure

you want to send that are you sure like your mom's like are you sure you want to send that but really my question is why doesn't that message say, if you send that, you will be kicked off this app forever? Or just start kicking people off. Isn't that more impactful? Yeah. So, I have a last question, Nancy. This is a really important topic, even though it's grim, Scott. Too bad. No, I love Scott. You having advice, Scott will get to ask you the last question then. I especially love Kara.

I mean, Kara, you're in my book. Did you know you're in my book? No. Am I? Yes, you are. I read parts about her. Well, of course she is. No, that's not what I meant.

Anyway, in any case. Swipe right on the book mention. All right, listen. Am I allowed to have a hero? Yes, you may. You can have me as a hero. It's fine. But let me ask you this question.

You yourself did this. What advice do you have people who want to use these dating apps? They're going to use them, and they're here to stay, I think. So what is the most unexpected? For yourself, if you had to give advice to someone using them, I know at the end of the book you say, go look at ducks, essentially. No, I don't say that. I don't say go look at ducks. No, I know what your point is. But the issue is, what would you want people to do who are

using these? What are your best practices if you're using these things? And for yourself- I do not think people should use them. I think they're harmful. All right. Okay. I think that they're bad for you. I think that you were, I mean, we all agree, there's a terrible instance of rape, sexual assault, harassing messages, unsolicited messages. People feel, you yourself said people feel bad when they use them. Yeah, my son took his off, took his off, did a short Tinder sting. He took it off.

He didn't feel good. He didn't feel good. Well, your son is a person who's intact with his emotions, and he's protecting his emotions. And I think that anyone who wants to protect themselves and protect their emotions and protect their safety, emotional and physical, should not use these things. Should not use them. I don't think so. And I don't think you should look at ducks, although I do like ducks. Okay. All right, Scott, last question.

Well, Nancy, first, I think you're doing important work. natural assumption kind of fomented by big tech and shareholders that connecting the world is just naturally a good thing and it doesn't have really negative externalities that we need to be thoughtful around is a courageous message that you're going to get. A ton of shit for. I get shit for it constantly. Constantly, constantly, constantly. I get a ton of shit for it and people attack me every which way for it. But guess what? Also, young women especially say thank you. Thank you for saying that. Let me just say keep fighting the good fight. And also the connection you made that I think is really an important one is we're in the midst of the largest unsupervised experiment

in the history of human behavior in the form of porn. And to think that that doesn't seep into people's relationships is naive. And unfortunately, my industry in academia, no one wants to be known as the porn professor, so there just isn't a lot of good research on it. But I guess the question I would have is- I make that point. I mean, I'm not trying to promote, promote, but read my book because I just say exactly what you just said in the book. There's a deep connection between porn and all of this. And I mean, I think the fact that dating now involves nudes, which are essentially self-generated pornography,

is one of the big tip-offs about that. But anyways, I'm sorry to interrupt. Let's assume that technology around key components of our society, including dating and mating, that it's out of the bottle and it's probably not going to be put back in. Then hire more women. Hire more women in your companies. Ask your question. I'm going to ask your question. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, you began to answer my question. What would you like to see us advocate and push these

companies to do to make a healthier ecosystem? Hire more women, hire more people of color. I think that if there were more people of color at these apps, for example, the algorithms, it wouldn't be acceptable that the algorithms were biased towards race, which a 2018 study by Cornell says that dating apps are essentially racist. And you can read about that.

But I don't have to go into why, but they promote racism, not only on the apps, but outside of the apps. So I think that if there are more people of color, more LGBTQ people, more women in these companies, in positions of power, and in the design of them. So at Bumble, which was founded by a woman, do you find that that's a healthier ecosystem? No. Bumble was founded by a woman who, I mean, I'm sorry to say, I think is a, you know, what they call a foot soldier for the patriarchy because Bumble, the idea for Bumble was not Whitney Wolfe Hurd's idea.

It was the idea of the guy who, the Russian mogul who does Badoo. Andreev, how do you pronounce his name? Andreev. It was his idea. He came to Whitney and said, hey, we want to do this. You want to be the face of this thing? And we'll say it's a feminist dating app. And this is not like my conspiracy theory. This has been reported and it's known. And he still owns, I think, according to Forbes. But they promote this. And newspapers like the Washington Post and all these people continually say, the feminist dating app. But then I talk to feminist thinkers and scholars about it. And they said, what is feminist about this?

This is not feminist in any way, shape, or form. It just codifies, first of all. Is there anyone that is less bad in your view? Is there anyone that is less bad in your view? I mean, I think that there are people out there like Justin McLeod who does Hinge. He's a good guy and he really wants in his heart to make this better and make it a better experience. I don't think that everyone who does a dating app is an evil person. They want to make people meet each other.

They want people to meet each other and hinge for a while had this idea like oh we're going to be the app that you delete and we're going to give you all this data about all our we're going to this was a couple years ago when i was also you know making waves they came out i don't know if it was connected but they did come out and they said we're going to publish all this data about how many people on hinge have met their long-term partner merit merit, you know, spouse. I never saw that data, I think, cause it doesn't exist. And if it did, it wouldn't, or, or if it, it wouldn't be as impressive, it wouldn't be a good advertisement. So I do think that they want it to be better, but they're going to have to do a whole lot more.

All right. I come to one conclusion. Let your mama fix you up. That's what I say. Let your mama fix you up. That's what I say. Let your mama fix you up. Since you know about the ducks, you know that in the beginning of the book, I talk about the days of like, you know, arranged marriages and everything.

And I am not advocating that. I know, but I feel like I would make good choices. That's what we need. You would, you would, but not everyone. I know just me.

I made choices for everybody. I would have been that girl, that young woman in the book who got out of Dodge and moved to New York City and became a factory worker and went on dates in the 19-teens, which is how dating started. Yeah. And I would have been her, and I would have gotten in all kinds of trouble for that. Yep. Yep.

Anyway, Nancy, I love the work you're doing. I think it's great. I'm glad you're visiting. Keep fighting the good fight, Nancy Jo. Keep fighting the good fight, Nancy. I love you guys. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. And I love the work you're doing. I think it's great. I'm glad you're pissed. Keep fighting the good fight, Nancy Jo. Keep fighting the good fight, Nancy. I love you guys. Thank you so much. All right.

Thank you. And good luck. The book is called Nothing Personal. And it's Nancy Jo Sales, who's very well known. She says, it's my secret life in the dating app Inferno. And when the word Inferno is used, that's not hot. It's just burnt. Correct, Nancy?

Although there's a lot of hot sex in the book. Okay. And moving on. Okay. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you being here. Thanks, Nancy Jo. You too. Bye-bye. The Capital Ideas Podcast now features a series hosted by Capital Group CEO, Mike Gitlin. Through the words and experiences of investment professionals, you'll discover what differentiates their investment approach,

what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. 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

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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. Free trial. ConstantContact.ca. All right, Scott, that was grim. Grim.

Grim. It's a good thing you have that lovely wife of yours, I'll just tell you that. Me too. I'm glad I was like, I grew up in an era where I just went to bars and got ridiculously fucked up so I could get the confidence to speak to strangers. That was much healthier. Really? That was much healthier. Is? That was much healthier. Is that how you did it? Pretty much. I never used a dating app, my friend.

Never. Not once. Never. Just meet people and just meet people. Oh, well, good for you. Isn't that nice? It's true. Isn't that nice?

Oh, it is nice, actually. I have to tell you, I would never be able to survive on a dating app. I got to be honest. When she said she was dating this lovely young man for a moment, I thought she was going to say it was Louis Swisher. I got to be honest. Cougar town on this episode of Cougar town. No. All right, Scott, wins and fails. Wins and fails. You know what I'm going to talk about? I told you I banged a cougar and now I'm no longer allowed at that zoo any longer. Oh my God. That's my joke. That's my good joke. Oh God, why did I let you say that? Listen, listen. That was way too serious.

I'm going to go first. You know what my win's going to be? That shit was way too serious. What is my win going to be? I don't know. What's your win? Mayor of Easttown, speaking of hot ladies. Third week in a row.

Let me just say, it's really catching on. It's becoming a big hit. It is a big hit now. I was right about it from the beginning. This is a big hit. This, I have predicted now. I was right about it from the beginning. This is a big hit. I have predicted online who is the killer. Who's the killer? I feel like I made a good case.

I'm not going to do it here, but I did it on – you can go look on the Twitter to see my guess. On the Twitter? On the Twitter. I love that show. You tried to explain it to me earlier today, and I didn't understand. What? Oh, you get it. I'm having trouble tracking all the characters and all the motives.

That's the whole point. That's the whole point. They're all related to each other. That's all you need to know. And they all have weird agendas they don't know about. And they all have weird relationships. And that's all you need to know. Go ahead. You go ahead. You go ahead. But that is my win. And it's my fail that it will be over next week. Thank you. The win, I think there's a lot of really great innovation to encourage people to get vaccines. I think some of the state lotteries are wonderful. And I think also, speaking of dating apps, some of the dating apps have agreed to make vaccines a criteria. And Andy Slavitt, our friend, worked with some dating apps such that people could request.

And also, it's now a criteria whether you're vaxxed or not. also it's a now a a criteria whether you're vaxxed or not and i think there's a lot of great innovation and and thoughtful encouragement around ensuring that we i mean this thing is a monster and it's on the run but we shouldn't just let it escape town we should hunt it down and put it stake through its fucking heart and so i think there's some creativity around encouraging people who were maybe on the fence to get vaxxed. And my loss is that I think China has the opportunity to come, unfortunately, come out of this pandemic as a new global leader unless we catch up and start going on the offense in manufacturing. Well, see, now, last week, though, you said they weren't getting their vaccines.

They can't travel to Europe. So in that regard— Their vaccines aren't as good, but they've actually donated substantially more vaccine to other nations than we have. And their Belt and Road Initiative, foreign investment. I think that coming out of this crisis, like coming out of this is the biggest crisis, you know, arguably since World War II. It tends to reorder the geopolitical chessboard. And I worry that I think a worry and also think it's a huge opportunity. Unfortunately,

we have not shipped a single donated dose, I don't believe, outside of the US yet. We've promised some, but we haven't actually gotten our act together. And I think not only the vaccines, but to take advantage of some of the wonderful organizations, whether it's the Peace Corps or Latter-day Saints who had to recall about 20,000 of their missionaries because of COVID, but to put Americans out on foreign shores with the best vaccines in the world and show what we're capable of. We're spending all our time worrying whether Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to kill us someday, or fighting over 9-11, I mean, excuse me, January 6th commissions and this and that. We do not have our eye on the ball here, and it's because these lunatics are scaring the bejesus out of the rest of us.

I think that's part of it. You're right. We don't have our, we're arguing over stuff we shouldn't be arguing over, like kids and trans. We're distracted. I don't know. Let's just put the fucking idiot in the corner of the room and ignore them. Yes, exactly. We got bigger fish to fry.

It's hard. We got bigger fish to fry. I think when you think about it, the fail, I have to say, I do have a fail this week, besides the fact that there's no mayor of Easton after next week. But I was talking about the AT&T thing earlier,

and John Malone, who I think is brilliant, he said on CNBC today, which I didn't buy the claim, which was John Malone said it was brave for John Stanky for inking the recent deal with Discovery. It was brave of him to do. He got you know, he essentially

said that it was a good thing that Malone said it was a good thing that he did and it was brave of him to do so and good on him. I said Malone is about to cash a huge check. I get it. It was just incredible that they let him just say that because you, it felt like log rolling in our time. And I just sort of was shocked that he said that, you know. Did you read the article in the Wall Street Journal with the behind the scenes where they went to a townhouse in the West Village and there was a picture of Steve McQueen?

It literally sounded like. Speaking of dating. It sounded like something out of the McQueen. It literally sounded like- Speaking of dating. Speaking of dating. It sounded like something out of the- Corporate porn. 60s. It was like Jimmy Gardner meeting Angie Dickinson for a high, it could not have been whiter and older. I know.

That's exactly why. I was like, are you kidding? These people aren't capable. Is this Mad Men? Literally, Ted Sarandos will blow them out of the water and cut them into little pieces. I don't think it's over. He's a schmoozer.

Let me just say, he there's, I saw him in the polo lounge many times, but he's the guy at Netflix. He's, he's the guy running. I was, I just was like, that was disgusting to me.

I agree with you. I agree. Angie Dickinson. Seriously. It's like, it's like literally they're like, I used to party with these cool cats in Cuba. I mean,

they sound, they could not have sounded more fucking older and wider. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Okay. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Okay. That's my fail. What's your fail? Your fail was that you said China.

Have you seen the new LeBaron? That's a sweet ride. I mean, God. They did. They sounded terrible. Oh, my God. Literally. And also, it was like flirty.

He sent him a stanky scent to David Zaslav. Yeah, their little text messages. I hope somebody comes in here and throws a bandage. Their little text messages. Like, oh, my God. I know. I'm never going to David Zaslav. Yeah, their little text messages. I hope somebody comes in here and throws a bandage. Their little text messages. Oh, my God. I know. I'm never going to. David Zaslav will never be on Sway or this show.

So maybe you're happy about that. Or John Malone. John Malone is brilliant. I can't believe it. Brave. He was brave of making a mess and then cleaning it up. He was brave for bailing out my shitty company for billions. He was brave.

I know. He was brave for making a disgusting mess and paying himself a lot and then cleaning it up. What a brave thing to do. Oh, God, these people. Anyway, all right, Angie Dickinson. I really appreciate it. I like that you mentioned Angie Dickinson. Does anyone who's under, like, 50 know who Angie Dickinson is?

She's a policewoman. Look her up. Total gangster. Policewoman. Let me just say, look Dickinson is. She's a police woman. Look her up. Look her up. Police woman. Let me just say, look that woman up. That was the best show. Piper? Was that her name on it?

Pepper. Pepper. Pepper, yeah. Pepper. Yeah, she was great. And then the Rockford Files. Anyway, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for the Pivot Podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. It was engineered by Ernie Indertot. If you like what you heard, please download or follow us. You know all the different places. Kara, I don't know. I actually think online dating.

Yeah. I don't think it's, I'm not sure it's the technologies. I think it's us. People. I think it's us. What do you think? I think it's, I'm not sure it's the technologies. I think it's us. People. I think it's us. What do you think? I think it's us with technology. There we have it.

Anyway. There we go. Anyways, we'll see you. I hope everyone has a fantastic week, and we'll see you again on, when do we come back? When do we do this fucking thing? Monday. Oh, okay. Friday.

Jesus, where am I? Where am I? Thank you, Rebecca. Friday. Jesus, where am I? Where am I? Thank you, Rebecca. Jesus. We'll see you guys Friday. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees. And it takes

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