Pivot - Tony Hsieh, Jeff Bezos's Twitter fingers, and Big Tech in Congress (again)

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

This week, Kara and Scott chat about the Wall Street Journal's deep dive on Tony Hsieh, Jeff Bezo's twitter fingers, and the future of unions. Then, Friend of Pivot Zephyr Teachout joins us to talk about Cuomo Corruption and how monopoly power is "white power." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What's up? We have lots to talk about. We do. A lot happened over the weekend. Yeah. I mean, first of all, let's clear up. Last Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sunder Pichai all appeared virtually before the House Energy, Commerce, and Subcommittee to talk about misinformation. The lawmakers seem pissed off, but I feel like they, again, a big, a whole lot of nothing. Pennsylvania Democrat Mike Doyle

opened asking if they bore responsibility. Of course, they didn't answer. Republicans' new talking points are about protecting children. Big tech is essentially giving our kids a lit cigarette and hoping they stay addicted for life, said Bill Johnson from Ohio. Now the Pew study, though, is showing that two-thirds of Americans think social media have a negative effect on the country. CEOs were evasive, Zuckerberg saying it was America's problem, not a Facebook problem. Lawmakers increasingly getting nervous. But what was interesting was that the tone was not positive and yet nothing is going to happen. What do you think? Well, they call them lawmakers and not righteous speech makers for a reason.

At some point, these elected representatives need to command the space they occupy and stop. It's almost, you know, now in criminal trials, the victims have an opportunity to put the criminal, or I guess it's the convicted person on stand and just basically, you know. Elicute. Yeah, elicute. That's a great word. That's the convicted person on stand and just basically, you know. Elocute. Yeah, elocute. That's a great word. That's the word. And that might be, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but this feels like that.

It's like, okay, enough already. Do your fucking job and make some laws. Yeah, enough with the elocution. Yeah, we get it. They're wrong. You're right. You've posed for the cameras. Now do your job. You're called lawmakers. So make some laws. I think we've just had enough. We're past the investigation, hearing, righteous speech stage. We should be moving into the lawmaking phase of this.

Mm-hmm, which is more difficult. Well, it's interesting. I interviewed Amy Klobuchar today for Sway, as you know, but you may not have listened to it, but she was talking about that. She's a much more, you know, sort of let's get these bills done. She did talk about the difficulties of passing them in these environments,

how hard it is to get any legislation through. And a lot of it had been bottled up by Mitch McConnell in the Senate. You know, a lot of some, she is, that woman writes bills like she, you know, she writes more bills than anybody and is very aggressive lawmaker. And that's even difficult.

So I think what will be interesting to hear, because there's another hearing coming up and there's another hearing, but it does feel as if enough is enough. Let's just make some laws. Let's just get down to it, essentially. Let's get down to that. I really, I keep, you know, I don't, I think, I'm even getting bored of it.

You know how much I like to see them under stress and things like that. So we'll see what happens. There's some things definitely moving through, and there's some of these bills are attached to like HR1. There's some attached, they're attached all over the place. But what they do have to do is get, you know, get the funding to the FTC and the Justice Department more funding, get some of these privacy bills going and then move on to, you know, where their liability is. Or else they're just going to be doing everything by executive order, which is not what they're there for. Agreed.

We'll see. So one of the other stories that I thought was quite depressing was Wall Street Journal did a deep dive on the death of Tony Hsieh. The problem was his entourage, his core team, friends, employees, musicians, he bankrolled them. They moved to Park City and became enablers. He and they were high on nitrous oxide. Some of the pictures were disturbing. Psychedelic mushrooms. Nothing wrong with a lot of things, but in this case, they seem to really enabled him to the point of death, essentially. Um, you know, they had, he had stuff all over his house. There was a lot of details about post-its and how he'd become

increasingly isolated by people he paid. Um, and one of the things that was interesting is he insisted he was fine and considered it a betrayal to anyone to help him, including, uh, you know, many, many people. Jewel came in and others. And it was just a really, it's stuff I'm not, I said it was tragic and I wasn't surprised by even a bit of it. Because even in earlier days, he had liked to have a group of entourage around him. He was always with an entourage when I saw him, whether it was in Las Vegas or he came to code or stuff like that, or in his bus or whatever. And it took on this sort of malevolent feeling, and that story kind

of underscored it. Yeah, but look, I don't think Tony Hsieh is dead because of a group of people who are enablers. I think Tony Hsieh is dead because of Tony Hsieh. Yes, that's fair. And the reality is, maybe they were enablers, but he was in charge. Because he has money, he was able to surround himself with people who would do what he asked. And so, I remember watching, it's this product, I remember like 20, 30 years ago, watching a Behind the Music on Glen Campbell. Remember Glen Campbell? Oh, yes. I love Glen. Are you kidding? Hello. And he had a cocaine habit. And they asked him about his cocaine habit. And he said that he had been surrounded by bad actors who convinced him to do cocaine. It's like,

no one held a gun to your head and told you to do cocaine. And I think Tony Hsieh is a very likable guy. And again, I think we afford innovators a certain level of idolatry and excuses. He's responsible for his own addiction. It's tragic. And we want to find other actors and turn the innovator into the victim. I don't know. I think that's fair. It's a tragic story. Quite frankly, he did this to himself. You know, it's interesting. I like your tough love there, Scott.

I do. You know, one of the things, though, that I think does happen is that when you look, someone told me when you look around and everyone is on your payroll, you've got a problem. Like when you look around and everyone around you, and it is certainly your fault. There is some level of who would do this. That was the part I couldn't get. There's like these people who would just let this happen over and over and again. Like I'm friends with people. Yes, exactly. No, I know that. But like, if you're a friend, I mean, I have been very tough on friends who have been in tough situations.

And that's what's the saddest part of this is that there was no ability to intervene on his family's behalf, on his friend's behalf. And, and therefore these people, you know, it's a story over and over again. And the, this, I think the thing that you put your finger on is this idolatry of the innovator is absolutely true. This idea that it was, when, when I think about it, you know, everybody, I didn't like his whole, you know, his whole smile bust or whatever happiness bust. And you know, I would say you were just silly. This is ridiculous happiness bust. And I would say, you're just silly. This is ridiculous silliness. And one of the things was, I remember like,

oh, it's fine that he does this. And I was like, it's juvenile. It's weird. And it just was sad because he was a lovely man of all things. He was quite a lovely man. So I just thought it's worth reading. Yeah, but it takes a certain level. And I always go back to this notion, I really enjoy coaching young people and especially young men.

And what I found, it's really important to keep people around you who don't buy your rap. And that is occasionally say, no, Scott, you're being a narcissist. Or Scott, you're kind of falling in love with your own press. Scott, you're being a narcissist or Scott, you're kind of falling in love with your own press. Or I have actually a group of older men in my life that like call me out of the blue and say, that was a shitty take, you're wrong. And it upsets me and I don't like them for about 24 hours. And then I realized how important they are to have in my life. And you always want to maintain a group of people around you who will tell you that you're all wet. Because it's very easy to start screening those people out of your life, especially when you have hundreds of millions of dollars and just can surround yourself with a full time party of people who, like you said, I don't want to call them your enablers, but you have consciously decided to have no guardrails around you. So you're essentially trying to tell me you love me, right? Is that what's happening here? Because

I do that. Is that what's happening? You do, yeah. I complete you? Is that what's going on? 100%. Your friends, your friends who tell you this. It all comes back to the cat. You just like crumble like a cake in the rain. When I like send you a text that is even slightly angry, you get. I get very upset. You get very upset. I sometimes am like, should I do this?

And I go, send. Like, it's really. You're my Jenga, but I keep pulling out the box. I cry when it crashes. And then another 24 hours, I'm like, let's play some my Jenga, but I keep pulling out the box. I cry when it crashes. And then another 24 hours, I'm like, let's play some more Jenga. I won't play Jenga. I won't play it. I don't like games like that. Anyways, Tony Hsieh and enablers, look, when you have this kind of money, you choose to enable yourself. All right. Moving on to the big story, which is about that,

the fight to unionize an Alabama Amazon warehouse. All last week Moving on to the big story, which is about that, the fight to unionize an Alabama Amazon warehouse. All last week, Twitter, Amazon execs went after Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in quite ridiculous terms, I thought,

because they both support workers at the Amazon warehouse who are trying to unionize. So they had a Twitter war. It was amazing. Dave Clark, who's a big executive at Amazon

says I often say we are the Bernie Sanders of employers but that's not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace and then when House Representative Mark I think it's Pocan called BS on said that workplace was so demanding that workers had to pee in bottles Amazon News account you really don't believe that

peeing in bottles is a thing, do you? If it were true, nobody would work for us, of course. Then there was a story that actually people do pee in bottles and actually defecate in bags, which is even more repulsive. And then Senator Warren jumped in about tax loopholes and the company's snotty tweets. And then Amazon News, again, whoever this is,

and who is the Dan Scamino of this, this is extraordinary and revealing. One of the most powerful politicians in the United States said she's going to break up an American company so that they can't criticize her anymore. And then it turns out, as Jason Del Rey from Recode and others have reported, that this was from the top. This was Bezos going for it. What did you think of this? I kept thinking of you all weekend. I think this is really interesting on a number of levels.

The first is, and you went on a Twitter storm that I thought cut to the quick of the issue. And the first thing I thought was, this is Bezos. Nobody goes after a senator without clearing it through Jeff. And first off, some immediate questions pop up that are uncomfortable for Amazon. And communications and public relations is all about communication is with the listener. And they really, I'm trying to think of an academic term here. They fucked bad the meat is. Like, well, you're the butcher. Right. But here's the thing. They absolutely snatched a feat from the jaws of victory here.

Yeah, agreed. Because. That's what I said. I don't like when she does this, but who cares? They're a big company. But go ahead. Go ahead. But there's some real rookie moves.

And it's amazing that this is a company that's typically very disciplined. And this was a rare lack of discipline. And it comes from individuals, and this, again, goes back to the notion of enablement. When you're the wealthiest, smartest businessman in the world, you surround yourself with people who tend to not check you. And he gets angry. There wasn't anybody there to say, you know what? When we tweet back at an individual as a corporation, some of those tweets, the tweets against or in response to Senator Sanders were from Amazon News. News, yeah.

First off, this is the biggest rookie move in communications. When you communicate from a corporation to an individual, the corporation has lost before the dialogue starts. Yep, agreed. Because Amazon is a big trillion-dollar corporation, and when they start getting into it with an individual, no one's going to side with the faceless corporation. No, no, exactly. And two, they could have torn them both apart. The response should have been, Senator Warren, as the largest consumer company or the fastest growing consumer company in history, we have a vested interest in the success of a society's ballast, which is the middle class.

As a function of that, we have raised minimum wage to more than double what it is in that state. Two, we have hired more people than any corporation in history within 12 months. more people than any corporation in history within 12 months. In the Q4 of 2019, we affected what is effectively the biggest pay raise in the history of mankind when we took all of our employees. They could have just gone data point, data point, data point. Why didn't they? What was the audience for these tweets? I said this this morning on CNBC. I'm like, just make the case for yourself in a polite way. I'll tell you what the audience was. The audience was a 57-year-old man who's on testosterone who hadn't had lunch and got angry.

And there was no one around him to go, you know, boss, this is a bad idea. We need to rethink this. People inside said they'd push back, but there was no pushing back. Well, they weaponized Dave Clark. He looks like a jerk now. Yeah. Because the reality is they're right. It's very Trumpy. I thought it was very Trumpy. Well, but that's another great point is in contrast. Let me get this. Trump is 10 times the asshole. 10 times.

Of Warren or Sanders. And yet you never went after him personally. Never. Not once. And you know what the next shoe to fall is? She gets under their skin. She does. People are going to start going, you know what? Is this a little scary that we have an individual, Jeff Bezos, who's prone to this anti-union or these missives? And by the way, what's he in charge of? The Washington Post. Yeah. People are going to start making that connection. Yeah.

What's the scaryunion, who also happens to be in charge of what is probably one of the most powerful media companies in the world? Yeah. And they'll start kind of like, okay, does he get angry? He weaponized David Clark. He said, David, go get him. Is that what he potentially does with his editors at Washington Post? Yeah, I guess I won't be the editor of the Washington Post. You know, I have gotten calls from two media reporters saying you're on the list. And I was like, you've I won't be the editor of the Washington Post. You know, I have gotten calls

from two media reporters saying you're on the list. And I was like, you've got to fucking be kidding. Let me see if I can take care of it this weekend with these tweets, which is funny. Yeah, but okay, so I'm going to go out on a limb here. A, I think you'd be wonderful. B, I think you're qualified. I think they put you on the list so they can say a lesbian journalist is on the list. And it makes them feel like they're somewhat wokey. Yeah, well, he wouldn't be able to push me around, I'll tell you that. I think it's a head fake. Oh, I agree.

I'm kidding, I'm totally unqualified. I'd drive that newspaper right into a wall. Actually, I do think you are qualified, but... I don't know. I did start off there in the mailroom. Nonetheless, I think these are... Let's go to the implications for unionizing. The union fight was started by Daryl Richardson,

a 51-year-old black entry-level picker in the Bessemer warehouse, who could be better in irresistible David Bertha's Goliath showdown. Fight is not over money. They make $15.30 an hour, high for the area. It's about control of the workers' time

and efficiency demands, like trips to the restroom. And Alabama, just so you know, another 20th century, it's the right to work law. Does this, what do you, it's going to happen, the voting is happening right now.

Six, this is a big deal because it's not a small group of people like at google or other amazon things this is 6 000 people it could have implications a wider implications or set off a chain reaction across amazon warehouses this is just this is probably the biggest moment for unions in the last decade because it's so high profile. And Amazon is the largest employer or the fastest growing employer in the world right now. But at the same time, there's real issues. And there's also huge issues around the middle class. And if you look at minimum wage and union membership, those are the two strongest signals in terms of the decimation of the middle class.

The fact that we have an increased minimum wage and the fact that union membership has literally been cut in half. So union membership's been cut in half in the last 30 years. I think if this, I think if the union loses here, this is probably the last nail in the coffin because the reality is unions have done a shitty job. Their image is bad. Even coming out of the pandemic, I think unions are a big loser because I think the teachers unions across America came across fairly or unfairly as putting the compensation of teachers ahead of kids well-being. I think that's the impression that parents had is that teachers unions were using the pandemic as an excuse to get additional compensation, which, quite frankly, they might they need to catch up. Teachers are underpaid. Even that's a general statement because there's so many different school districts. I just think unions, as a brand, have done a terrible job. So they have to win here.

They just get weaker. I wonder if there's another construct for better representing the middle class in union. I wonder if union's time has just come and gone, quite frankly. Well, it's going to be interesting. I'm a member of a union. Because if unions lose here, it'll look like Jeff being an asshole is worked. But it didn't. It didn't work, Jeff. You were an asshole.

You just were an asshole. Okay, but here's the thing. In Bessemer, if two people, if a husband and a wife or a husband and a husband or a wife and a wife work at that plant, $30 an hour in Bessemer, I mean, or $60,000 in household income in Bessemer, that's a solid middle class life in Bessemer. And they have access to health insurance. So, I mean, what's really scary is what if the union wins and Amazon says, we're leaving Bessemer? Yeah, that's right. They might do that. I mean, they play hardball. What was interesting is a lot of the reaction was how many people were defending

Bezos in the group. They wanted to focus on Warren and everything else. And it was fascinating how many people, very much like Elon, not quite the same level, were like, hey, he's the best. And so whatever he says goes. It was really interesting. Like angry, mostly men, I have to say. Like, they sort of have this aspirational quality to, I'd like to kick some ass like that Bezos guy does. So it was interesting. It was an interesting rap. He still was an asshole. Like, okay. What I don't care with Bezos, though, is why they don't pull a Chesky. Chesky took a big amount of stock. I mean, Bezos is not afraid to reinvest in his company.

And the $15 an hour was a bold move. They could have put out a tweet saying, Senator Warren, we look forward to working with you as we worked with Senator Sanders around minimum wage issues. I mean, they absolutely could have recapped her with data and a forceful yet dignified manner. Instead, she like, yeah, tweaked them. But the thing about what I don't understand about Bezos is a guy's with $160 billion. Why wouldn't you go to a shareholders and say, and has a trillion dollar company, you're all going to incur a 5% dilution. And I'm going to set up a $50 billion fund for workers around healthcare, around working moms. And it's just like, I just don't get it. He just doesn't want to. You know, if Mackenzie

Bays was running it, that's what would happen here. Mackenzie Scott was running it. That's what would happen. He just doesn't want to. Same thing with Elon. Go back to work. I don't care if you get COVID. Like, you know what I mean? Like this is, you know, and then the statistics bear it out at that factory. You know, they don't care. I don't know what else to say. They just don't mind being assholes. And they think it's, and if he wins here, he's going to be insufferable in that they think this worked. I was behind him on the sexting. I'm like, go for it, Jeff. But in this one, ugh.

You're just an asshole. You were pro-sexting? I was pro-sexting and pro him pushing back in that really loud and obnoxious way. I loved it. I thought it was great. It was great. I was great. But in this case, Jeff, you're an asshole. Someone should tell you. This is an asshole move.

Even if you win, you're an asshole. Yeah, but I think this says more about unions than it says about Bezos. We'll see. All right. We're going to go on a quick break and we'll be back to talk about our favorite assholes at WeWork. 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

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BoEx acquisition. Okay. All right, WeWork. Tell me, Scott, what do you think? We're more bullish on WeWork now, aren't we? Are we correct? Well, here's the thing. Anytime you do an analysis of a company through the lens of shareholder value, it has to be set against the context of the valuation. And as you know, my kind of, I don't know, occasionally you have a moment. One of my quote unquote moments is when I wrote a piece saying that two weeks before

WeWork was supposed to be public at a 50 to 70 billion dollar valuation. I said, this company is not going public. Bullshit. Yeah. This company is not worth this. And then it just literally unwound. Yeah. And but here's the thing. I'm actually I don't want to say I'm bullish on WeWork, but I don't think it's any shittier than most of the SPACs going out right now.

Because instead of being valued at 47 billion, it's valued at $9 billion. A real estate company, it says what it is. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. They've laid off 8,000 people. They've cut costs dramatically. They have a manager versus a messiah running the company now. Sandeep Matrani is a real manager and a disciplined operator versus the 30-year-old faux Jesus they had. And also, the market is coming to them because coming out of the pandemic, I think you're going to have thousands of companies that are going to say, we want office space, but we want less. But we want it to be cooler and more social and more flexible, which plays to their strengths. In addition, the commercial real estate business is a $12 trillion asset class, and right now WeWork is the strongest brand in a $12 trillion asset class.

Can you name another office building brand? There could be one, yeah, but no. There isn't. I mean, the largest office owners are Vornado or Equity Office. No one types in Vornado Atlanta, but they type in... I like that name. That might be my new name, Vornado. Vito. No one types in Vornado Atlanta, but they type in WeWork Atlanta.

So what do you have? You have valuation is now 80% less. Costs are way down. Sandeep is saying they'll be profitable by 2021. So, in sum, this has gone from a ridiculously stupid consensual hallucination concept, losing $150 million a week, to a company where I think, you know what? I think it's actually probably a decent buy. I't yeah i've gone from bear so i don't want to call call myself a bull but like a cow i've gone from bear to cow on this

what do you think i think you're right i think you're completely right i i had no problem some of the we work branding stuff gets a little tired quickly you know what i mean like they have to keep it fresh you know i'd like them i hope they freshen up because it had a little bit of that like the weird, I got sick of them after a while. Like, you know, it's sort of like, I don't know, like pedal pushers are in and then they aren't.

Then it's culottes and then it's long pedals. It's like, it felt like possibly dated. So I don't know if going into one right now, I could do it and be like, what is, what, you know, 10 years, five years ago is calling and wants to come back kind of thing. But the first thing, if they said, if we said, all right,

Vox is setting up a Dallas office and we want it to be small and flexible, what would we do? We wouldn't know what to do. We'd go WeWork. That's what I mean. That's what's great about it. Convenience and it's sort of like, whether it's a Four Seasons, whether it's a Burger King,

you know what you're getting. You know what you're getting. Yeah, exactly. It's global. So I think that's, I think it's smart. Yeahasons, whether it's a Burger King, you know what you're getting. You know what you're getting when you're there. Yeah, exactly. It's global. So I think it's smart. Yeah, they can do it. So SPAC is the best way to do this too, actually. It's actually kind of perfect on some level. Yeah, the whole SPAC thing is just incredible.

There's already been more SPACs, more capital raised from SPACs in 2021 than there was in all of 2020. Yes. It's just- 295 SPACs have gone public in 2021. Yeah, that's- $93 billion. When is this going to end? Why don Yes. 295 SPACs have gone public in 2021. Yeah, that's- $93 billion. When is this going to end? Why don't we have a SPAC? That's the right question. Why don't we SPAC ourselves? We have to NFT ourselves. We have to SPAC ourselves. SPAC me, baby.

SPAC me. We got an NFT. We got a SPAC. We got a lot to do. We got a lot to do. We're the Vornado NFT SPAC. So you are in an upcoming documentary about this WeWork situation. You look quite comely in it, I have to say. Quite comely? Really? Yeah. You a little hot for the dog? No, not even slightly.

You can admit it. Not even slightly. So, Scott, I think this is good. We're now positive on WeWork, correct? Even though you like take them apart in this documentary. Yeah. You're now positive. I'm cowish on it.

Can you moo for us, Randy? I need to understand the numbers. But here's the thing. The WeWorks back will be seen as an innovator. They will be judged by a different set of metrics. Yeah. If Sandeep can deliver profitability in the last quarter of this year,

gosh, who knows? And not only that, they enter into... A market, cheap prices. Yeah, they enter into a market where everyone else is retreating. There's no commercial office player playing offense right now. And I also think people underestimate how difficult it is. I think what they do, the whole community stuff, the cool architecture, I think that's harder than people think. I think that vibe just doesn't happen. All the commercial real estate owners are saying, well, we can do flexible space. Next are the, these are next to academics. These are the least

aspirational cool people in the world. Yep. And they don't, I'm not sure they know how to create like a hip millennial vibe. Nope. Why not let them do it? I agree. Yeah. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. All right. Can you moo right now? I'm not going to moo. Please moo. Is this the kinky part of you? You know what? I'm not going to moo. Please moo. Is this the kinky part of you? You know what? I'm not going to play your games. Do not objectify me as an animal. You complete me.

All right. Let's bring on our friend of Pivot. You're my guardrails. Someone is going to make you talk right now. Friend of Pivot. Tough, tough person who I have great admiration for. Zephyr Teachout is a law professor at Fordham and author of Break Him Up and a candidate for New York governor.

That's correct, Zephyr, are you there? I was a candidate for New York governor in 2014. You were. Not right now. Are you? No, I'm not. I have some thoughts about the governor, but. Oh, excellent, excellent.

We're going to get to the governor, Cuomo. And so you're not a Cuomosexual in other words, correct? That's gone. That's all done. Okay. But let's talk about the big tech CEOs. They testified in Congress last week. Do you see any movement in their testimonies?

Oh, it's such a hard hearing after the spectacular hearing last year with David Cicilline. You see what a great hearing can be when lawmakers come with documents asking about particular deals, really getting into the nitty gritty. there's some value in this hearing. And I think it is part of a move that shows that Congress is going to act. It's very clear to me, you know, it's very clear that Congress is going to act. Where and how is unclear. It was great to see lawmakers talking about the business model. It didn't get much more granular than that. I mean, there was the one moment where Zuckerberg was asked how much money he makes from kids under 13. Good question. And he didn't answer. I mean, he repeatedly didn't answer anything. But getting more questions like that, figure out 10 conspiracy theories and say, okay, how much did this affect your bottom line? Getting more into the financial models is what I would like to see in these hearings. But at least you're

seeing them talking about the business model. And that is a shift. So yes, there was plenty of the why aren't you moderating better kind of question and plenty of grandstanding. But we're starting to talk about the business model. And then you saw, you know, Congressman Rogers talking really, you know, talk about suicide and the devastating effects on teenagers and depressions. Those were a few moments that really stood out. I mean, the one other, there wasn't a lot about breakups, which I think we could use more of along with talking about the business model. But there was a moment where Armstrong from North Dakota did get Zuckerberg to admit something that we all know, which is that if we're looking at market structure, we should be looking at non-price factors. And I mean, I don't know that we need Zuckerberg's admission there,

but I still think that's important. Okay. All right, Scott? Well, most importantly, the really key question here is, Professor Tichat, have you appeared on any other podcasts recently? Go ahead. Say it. Say it. What show were you on? What podcast were you on?

Kara doesn't know this. You're on Prof G. That's right. Because I invest in our relationship. Don't tell her. I invest in our relationship. Ask her an actual question, please. It was a highlight of 2020. Go on.

It really was. That's right. That's right. Yeah, except until now. Go ahead. Ask her actual questions. So, Professor, what do you think of Representative Cicilline's notion that they should go after a variety of legislation instead of trying one big omnibus bill, that the strategy is going to be to try and go after them from a variety of angles? You know, I am not the Hill strategist here,

but I think there is a value in getting a series of strong pieces out there. And so we can really talk about the impacts. And, you know, we're going to be what I'll be looking for are one. It sounds pretty technical, but it's really essential. Are we taking power away from judges? Because right now we have, you know, judges that starting starting with Reagan, but the last 40 years have so deeply embedded with a Robert Bork mentality, a consumer welfare mentality, that if you give a lot of play in the legislation, if you still allow judges to decide whether something is anti-competitive or not, you're not going to see the kind of substantial breakup regime that I think we need to see. So that's one thing I'll be looking for in the legislation, both in the House and in the Senate. I'm a big fan of Klobuchar's leadership in this area. Her current bill is still, it's a bill that was drafted a few years ago, and I hope gets updated to have more of this kind of bright line legislation because that can make a big difference. A second thing to be looking for in legislation is whether when you're looking at mergers,

whether mergers can be waived through with conditions or whether there's a default presumption that you actually block the merger if it's anti-competitive. Right, so they have to prove themselves. So one of the things you call monopolies are private systems of government. And you've also said monopoly power is white power. Can you roll that out for us?

Yeah. I mean, it's basically the private systems of government everybody would have understood before 1980. And I think a lot of people increasingly understand now that when that's a certain point of both size and control, it's governing. It's governing. And that particular line isn't easy to tell. But when you look at something like Amazon and the way it treats the sellers on this platform, I mean, I see the cost that it gives to those sellers as a kind of private taxation because it just has the power to whimsically set the rates. It's not

governed by a back and forth within a seriously competitive market. And Justice Douglas said this in the 1950s, all forms of private power tend to form into a government in and of itself. And so historically in this country, we used to be a real leader on this. You know, as we know now, we're actually, it's harder to start up here than in Europe, but that we understood that anti-monopoly law,

a core reason for anti-monopoly law was to protect democracy, to sort of not allow rival forms of private government to coexist with public government. All right. But what about white power specifically? And then in your book, you start talking about the human drive for power that leads to tyranny. So talk a little bit more detail about that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of the areas that's gotten the least attention

is the ways in which the merger wave has really wiped out. and by merger wave, I mean 40-year merger wave, has really wiped out extraordinary locuses of Black power when you look at Black economic power, Black community power. Just for instance, when you look at insurance companies, funeral homes, pharmaceutical companies, there are... Is that because people of color over-index the small businesses and small businesses just lose in concentration of power? Yeah. And so the impact... I'm going to interrupt you. I just want to interrupt you for a second. Isn't it worse than that? Isn't it basically monopolies are about white patriarchal older power? There just aren't that many monopolies that have young female people of color at the top. No, that's exactly right. Yeah. And I come from election, I come from studying

systems of power in the electoral field. And this is the oldest trick in the book. If you merge three congressional districts, one of this is the old Southern trick. You merge three congressional districts, one of which would have had a black representative with two white districts and then say everybody's at large. Then you have three white representatives. So this system of merging has allowed has has been a driver. And then you see where the money has gone. And, you know, until there's protests and it's always sort of, it's like protest and then we change our policy. It was Google and all the big tech companies, along with AT&T and big pharma, who was funding the voter suppression bills through ALEC through 2010. So you have a double mechanism of both the way in which mergers wipe out key centers of power and then fund greater destruction of that power. Absolutely. So I'm just curious, today they're voting in Alabama about Amazon.

Do you have any thoughts on where that's going to go? Speaking of powerful white guys. I mean, we'll all be looking closely. I do think it's, it's a beginning. And, you know, if we're really going. Do you think it's a beginning or an end? I apologize for keeping. He just mentioned this.

That's why, because he just mentioned the idea that unions don't win here. If the unions lose here, I kind of see this as we're all of a sudden in the bottom of the ninth for unions as a construct for representing the middle class. I think this has got big implications on the future of unions if they lose here. Well, I think what it does, Scott, is it turns, which has already been happening with unions, is it turns more and more to antitrust and anti-monopoly. I think that's right. Because if you are going to have relative power, it's basically, it's effectively, even with all this attention, it's so hard to organize in Bessemer. But that basically to be able to organize, you need to have somewhere else to go. You need to be able to say, you know, we actually have good jobs elsewhere that we can go to and not have the market controlled by one or two companies.

And so you're seeing this with the Teamsters, for instance. You know, they're talking more and more about anti-monopoly. If you want to have unions, you also need to break up these companies. You can't... Yeah, the best union is competition. So these individuals can force higher rents on their labor from other companies bidding on their labor. It feels like the best union in the world would be a less feeble government that breaks up these companies, no? Well, I mean, I believe in union power itself. So I don't want to say the best union in the world. I don't want to overuse the term union. But let me, I apologize. Good. I have tremendous, by the way, I love Professor Tichot. I could listen to her all day. So this is, I'm asking you these questions because I want to learn from you. But quite frankly, I think unions are a perfect example of being right and ineffective. Everything they say, I think, makes sense. They're a ballast for the middle class, and they have gotten the shit kicked out of them for 30 years. They have been ineffective. Don't we need something else? I mean, aren't we just always waiting for unions to reassert their power and it never happens. And we need antitrust.

I mean, I know I'm just going back to this, but when you have this massive concentration of power, and in my book, I'm pretty tough on unions because they haven't used the merger moment as a leverage point in the way they could because they have a moment where they can access more information. But they tend to use it, and I'm sympathetic,

but they tend to use it to say, well, can we just get a decent contract for five more years, even if in five more years, then we'll support your merger with this massive hospital chain in exchange for just give us a decent contract for five more years. They have no leverage. And so using those merger moments is key. But we as a society also need to support unionization by having Biden be out there more front as a, you know, using his platform as... Which he has. Which he has. And it's been great. That matters. That matters. That mattered in the 40s when we had a pro-union president and decentralizing you know antitrust

is how you make capital harder to organize and unionization is how you make it easier for people to organize and we need both yeah you know what would be interesting here is if trump was president uh he might be for the union here because he's you know he sort of supported he was sort of playing into the white working class but he hates basil it's kind of would be interesting to see what his take would have been at this he's just so bad faith it's just yeah no it's all right speaking of bad faith uh cuomo you called on him to resign uh and that said he's been abusing his power for decades so tell us give us your take on this i don't even want to ask any questions just love your take what's going to happen too i mean cuomo is not going to resign unless he feels like he has no source of power left he does not uh care about being loved

um he doesn't really have anywhere else to go you know it's um but he is in the toughest situation in his career because for the first time it's gone national. And people who've been, you know, in New York reading the paper for the last 10 years have seen the ways in which he really uses his office to protect his own power. So the guy who's at the center of New York's vaccines right now is a guy named Larry Schwartz. Ten days ago, he was caught calling county executives, checking in on two things. One, what's your vaccine need? And two, are you going to support the governor? And, you know, you don't need to be. Yes. Sometimes those were separate calls,

but it's from the same guy, the same day. This is the same guy who quashed subpoenas way back in 2014, when an anti-corruption commission was getting too close to Andrew Cuomo's friends. He has no public health background. He's been living in the governor's mansion. I mean, the weirdness and flubbiness and just self-protection of Andrew Cuomo gets weirder the closer you get. These are the kinds of stories that have been Cuomo all along, and they're only now getting out. And you have not just the, you know, very serious, you know, sexual harassment claims, but how he's responded by leaking personnel files. So what happens, I think right now has to do with pressure on other lawmakers, you know, most lawmakers have called on him to resign, which is a big deal. But the next move is whether they move forward

with an impeachment, whether they do it publicly, or whether they sort of call on him to resign and then just move on. And then there's a big moment with Tish James. So Tish James's report should come out probably in June, maybe in July. She's hired some really amazing investigators who are looking into not just the sexual harassment, but also the retaliation in the nursing homes. So I think that's the big moment coming up. And, you know, I just think New York needs somebody who other lawmakers trust. To me, one of the more damning moments is when the head of the budget committee, New York's budget committee, they're negotiating the budget right now. She says, I can't work with the governor's office because he lies because of the lies around the

nursing homes. These aren't just public lies, which are problematic enough. These aren't just like a politician puffing their military experience. This is giving wrong numbers to committees that needed those numbers last summer and lying to them. So she's like, who do I talk to? So are you, we got to go soon, but are you going to run? I'm not planning on it, no. So no, that's a no. I don't want to sound like a politician.

No, I'm not running for governor. Okay, who would you think would be running? I mean, Tish James is the- This is the New York Attorney General. And I ran against her and I got to say, she's done a great job. So I've really been impressed. She has shown her independence. And she's got a hell of an antitrust team. I mean, amazing. Yeah. Speaking of which, getting back to that, that's another area of antitrust that's being looked at by state's attorney attorney generals which cannot be ignored either

who have been much more aggressive than the federal government in lots of ways yeah no i i mean look at the states there's a lot of state legislation that's happening and you see the lobbying going on like crazy in the states just to not get the bills to go to the floor um and then the state ags um and and they they got to play off each other because the state AGs are doing amazing work. But as you guys know, those cases can't be, those individual cases can't be all that we do. We need the legislation. Well, Zephyr, thank you so much. We recommend your book. I will call you professor too. Law professor at Fordham and author of Break Them Up. Please buy it. Zephyr, thank you so much. Thank you, Professor. Oh, thanks for having me.

All right, Scott. She's a star. Yeah, very smart. Professor Teachout. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all.

I'm John Blunhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees, and it takes forever to build a campaign?

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Okay, Scott wins and fails. I have a fail myself. I'm going to go first. You go first. Arkansas. The laws against doctors not treating gay people. They don't want to. What?

What do you mean, what? Like Asa Hutchinson is laying waste to us. I'm horrified. What is going on? They passed a law. Asa Hutchinson, who just did another terrible abortion one this week, decided that doctors, because of religious reasons, should not have to treat gays and lesbians. They don't want to. Hmm.

Which is amazing. It's not going to be a democratic law. So he signed the bill allowing medical workers to refuse treatment, all medical workers, not just doctors, to LGBTQ people. So it's the same thing of the cake baking, the whole thing. It's another version of that. But in this case, you know, the physicians do no harm. It's the opposite is doing harm. The measure says healthcare workers and institutions have a right not to participate in non-emergency treatments that violate their conscience. The new law won't take effect until later this summer. So it allows doctors to refuse to treat someone because of religious or moral objections.

So just astonishing and astonishing. And he's already Asa Hutchins, who pretends he's moderate, is in no way moderate. And so I will not be going to Arkansas anytime soon. We can't go to Georgia any longer if we want to vote. I don't know if you got a winner or fail. I guess it's a fail. I love someone tweeted that, I think it was Zach Bornstein, I think is a genius from Crooked Media. Anyways, he said that he was looking forward to no longer avoiding grocery stores because of COVID, but because of the fear of mass shootings. And I think that I think it's hopeful that hopefully we not only see a light at the end of the tunnel, the end of COVID potentially.

And again, it's dangerous to say that because we have seen a bit of a spike. But it's nice to see that we're starting again to focus on other issues. And gun violence, again, mass shootings rear their ugly head. I also think that it's going to bring up, I just think everything comes back to income inequality and availability of guns, of weapons of war is obviously the biggest problem here. But I think you have a group of young men. I think the two cohorts we would be best served by investing in would be moms. I do think Marshall Plan for Moms would reap huge benefits for our society. And then two, I think young, non-college-bound youth. And if you look at the profile of these shooters, they have an eerily similar profile. Yeah, they do. And it's disaffected young men

who are having trouble attaching to work, having trouble attaching to school, and quite frankly, having trouble attaching to relationships. And there's an uncomfortable truth that men date and mate horizontally and down, and women date and mate horizontally and up. horizontally and down and women date and mate horizontally and up. And because women, young women relative to young men have done much better, seven out of 10 girls are valedictorians, more women going to college, vastly more women graduating from college. There's just not getting around it. A young, a young, bored, lonely man is the most dangerous person in the world. And that's, I want to be clear, I don't think it's anyone's obligation to service young men in any way, but there was just a frightening statistic

that came out. I don't know if you saw this. It was from Pew and it said that in 2008, the number of men who had not had sex before the age of 30, in other words, hadn't been in a relationship, was 8%. Do you know what it is now? Oh, don't tell me. It's 27%. And even when you look at places like Sudan, where they're really warlike, when you end up with incredible income inequality, you end up with essentially polygamy because the wealthy people get the most selection of mates. And again, young, bored men who aren't attaching to relationships become violent. And that's not to say, I'm not

saying that gun control isn't a central component here, but I do think income inequality and a lack of prospects for young people, and I'm just saying men, I'm saying women as well, but it just so happens when women don't have a lot of prospects, they tend to not pick up an AR-15. They do not. So I think there's something around investing in not only moms, but also I think we need a much greater focus and more investment in young people who are not college bound because we're creating an entire generation, and it's happened in China, of young men who aren't attaching to anything. And unfortunately, unfortunately, a young, bored, unattached man is the most dangerous person in the world.

And if they're radicalized by, say, misinformation. On social media, or they're fed information that it's a woman's fault that they're alone. So I think there's, we want to talk about guns, but I don't care if it's guns, I don't care if it's systemic racism, gender inequality. I think all of these have a bigger issue at the front, but the incendiary making all of these things worse underneath them is income inequality.

100%. Scott, we're going to have to say something positive. We've got to end on a positive note. I went to the National Arboretum, which was free from the U.S. government. Beautiful cherry blossoms,

daffodils. That's nice. Everything. It was lovely, and it was lovely to take Clara there who loved it. So that was a positive that there are good things from our federal government. Wonderful things.

National parks. National parks. That's nice, Kara. What's your win? You know, I didn't, I didn't have a win.

Yeah. I'm, I'm feeling, I don't know. I don't have a win today. No, no, no.

I'm really, I'm really just, I'm every time this, this mass shooting stuff comes up, I feel feeling, I don't know. I don't have a win today. No win. No win. I'm really, I'm really just, every time this mass shooting stuff comes up, I feel so, I don't know. Infinite is an American. I just feel so like, Jesus Christ. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with us? I know.

And I don't know how to, I don't know. We have 40% of the guns and like whatever, 4% of the population. We have more guns than people. We have 5% of the population, but 45% of the guns. I mean, it's just absolutely crazy town. And then what I find just so discouraging is that the gun people like to blame us on the mentally ill. And the reality is a mentally ill person is more likely to be the subject of gun violence than the perpetrator.

And so that's, mentally ill people not only have enough to deal with, but the NRA blaming them. And we do not have a monopoly on mental illness. We don't over or under index on mental illness. We over index on people's access to weapons of war.

I just, I can't understand. And again, I sort of blame Democrats. The NRA is on the ropes. They're financially mismanaged. Wouldn't this be the time to go in and break their fucking backs? Well, guess who's doing that? Tish James in New York. I hope so. She is. She's trying. I hope so. But see, the thing is, New York is actually pretty good on gun control and on gun violence. No, no, but she's going after their bankrupt. She's going

after them in a way. They're trying to escape her attempts. But yeah, I agree. We got to get our government to intervene in a lot of these areas. In any case, it also does link with governors like Asa Hutchinson or senators like Ted Cruz who are appalling as people. I'm sorry. And by the way, Jeff Bezos, stop friggin' tweeting like that. Act like a man.

Like, man up and give your case. Come on, get back to the dick pics, says the jungle cat. Yeah, that's fine. Do what you're good at. You get all you want. We don't want to see your tweets. You get mad all you want about your pictures. We want to see Big Ed and the twins.

You're good with that. But for fun, just stop. Just stop. You're the richest person in the world. Stop. Thank you. That is my job application for that. Make me head of the Washington Post, and I'll tell you where to get off. That is my job application. Make me head of the Washington Post

and I'll tell you where to get off. That's how I say. That is my job application. Don't be an asshole, Jeff. This is getting ugly. Let's go back to the Arboretum. All right. That's the show. We'll be back Friday for more. There's so much news, Scott. It's crazy. There's a lot of news. Anyway, go to

nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the Pivot podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Camila Salazar. Ernie Andretod engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify

or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. America isn't what it is. It's what we make of it. Gun control can absolutely happen, Kara. This is, for God's sakes, it was time a long time ago, but now especially it's time.

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