Pivot - Trillion dollar companies and tax season; how the “Black List” shapes Hollywood’s big business… and is podcasting coming for radio dollars?

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

Kara talk about Google becoming the world's fourth trillion-dollar company ... and who is actually paying taxes on all of it? They discuss world leaders congregating at Davos. Donald Trump will be speaking as the Senate impeachment trial starts. In Friend of Pivot, Executive Producer and founder of "The Black List", Franklin Leonard says that with the influx of big tech companies producing films there is greater opportunity for a "full embrace of the country's diversity", even though the Oscars did not reflect those stories. In wins and fails, Kara disagrees with Scott on holding Sheryl Sandberg accountable for Mark Zuckerberg's failures at Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher with a really bad cold. And I'm Scott Galloway with some news that will cheer you up, Cara. The New York Times has decided to endorse me and Angela Lansbury for General Consulate of Australia. Oh, my God.

We'll get to that. That is insane. I'm sorry. They're endorsing two people. They should have picked, right? What are they? Does the editorial board only have one testicle each or one? I don't know what the equivalent is. I don't. I mean, literally, they're endorsing two people, right? What are they? Does the editorial board only have one testicle each or one? I don't know what the equivalent is. I mean, literally they're endorsing two people. I don't know what to say. I think I was sort of surprised. You worked there. It's

your fault. I was surprised. And I would say we're going to talk a lot about lady issues this week because they would never do that to a man. I'm sorry. Like, two women, oh, these are good ladies. We need a group of them. It takes a village, Kara. It takes a village. Why don't they just throw in Hillary Clinton? I'm going to let Monica go. I think they're like the entire electorate.

They're like, well, we like Elizabeth Warren, but she can't win, and then Amy Klobuchar's kind of okay, but she's the realist versus the radical. And I'm like, anyway, anyway. Do you like them doing it through the video thing? A lot of people thought it was like a reality show. It felt like a Trump show, but I kind of liked it. I thought that part of it was innovative, and I loved how they, I thought the graphics online of the New York Times were fantastic, and they went into the pluses and minuses from their viewpoint.

I thought there was a lot of actually courage in the article. I think they came out and said, I don't know if you read Bernie's write-up, but he's 79 years old and he just had a heart attack. And that's dangerous and we need new blood. I thought that was surprisingly honest and politically incorrect for the time. Well, that's what they say behind the scenes. Why not? That's what they say in the room. But kudos to them for doing it.

But I agree with you. I think if it had been an all-male race, they would have picked one candidate. What it is an interesting argument for is plurality voting or rank voting, which I think is going to get a lot of steam. But yeah, it did seem kind of, I don't know. It just seemed very...

Fox News wouldn't pick two candidates, right? It's only the politically right. No. Well, they'll just pick one, Donald Trump and then Donald Trump. Yes, it was very odd. But speaking of a lady issue, I'm going to get to your Sheryl Sandberg rant in a minute. But I just want to say people loved our fight last week on privacy. I think we're going to have another one over Sheryl Sandberg.

But people were on my side for the most part, by the way, FYI. But they were very pleased with you for going out on an idiotic limb, I think. That's how they felt about it. Yeah, I have four of those idiotic limbs. I know. You had a lot this week. But I'm saying they liked it. What do you think?

I liked our debate. I was surprised that people reacted in such a way. They thought it was a very civil back and forth on an important issue and that we were respectful to each other. We were respectful. Kara, you ignorant slut. But anyways, there's – no, there's – look, I think it's important to argue to learn, not necessarily to argue to be right. And I think our society has lost a lot of that. And I think that if we have respectful, data-driven, thoughtful debate, we will craft more thoughtful solutions, or at least

that's what the framers initially thought. We've lost a lot of that. Yeah, I would agree. Are we going to talk about our debate? Is this part two? Is that what we're doing here? No, we can talk. This is, no, I'm just saying, I just noticed the New York Times giant piece about Clearview and facial recognition. Some asshole decided to do this. Like, I'm just saying, if there's no laws in place, this is how it's going to go. These little companies are going to pop up, and then there's going to be someone with no ethics, that guy who ran that company with the facial recognition selling it. Someone's going to do it.

It's like the cloning guy. Like, I think I'll just do it. And so we need the government in here to talk about this. I'm sorry. I think this is an important part of our society. And if it's just, you know, all hell breaks loose, all hell's going to break loose. Yeah, I agree with you. But that's different. There's some nuance here. There's a difference between technologies that run amok and can violate people's privacy and the need for regulation and laws to prevent people from doing that. You can't put on a pair of Ray-Ban glasses and then see everything about somebody, including their phone number, and decide

to abuse that information or stalk people or whatever. You could see where this technology goes a lot of bad places. What we were arguing about was whether Apple should create a doomsday fail-safe box that no matter how dangerous that information is to national security or safety, that there's a right for people to have a place, a safe box, if you will, or kind of the ultimate safety deposit box that no one can ever get into, regardless of the threat. I feel like those are two different issues. I don't know. I think these guys are selling to the government. That's who they're selling to. Anyway, we shall keep going. If there's another, we need laws. We need a long and debate like we

had about it so that people can really decide and then let our elected officials decide once we give them instructions or put people in place. Anyway, it's a very important topic that we need to have much more debate. But just some observations because I do learn a lot from the feedback I get. And I would say the feedback was sort of like two-thirds negative, one-third positive to my position. is that people have a knee-jerk reaction and they're triggered and they do what Daniel Kahneman calls slow thinking, and that is they immediately make assumptions about their viewpoint because they're unable to separate the ideology from the person. In this instance, because Attorney General Barr and President Trump had proposed or highlighted a need for a backdoor into the iPhone, a lot of people were very upset about it and assumed it was the wrong thing to do. And what I found is that people don't realize or don't want to recognize, there hasn't been a lot of discussion, that the UK government, the Australian government, the Indian government

have all asked for a backdoor. And the Department of Justice under the Obama administration asked for the same thing. They just did it more elegantly. And they've all asked for kind of the same thing. Of course they want it. If I was a spy, I'd want it too, obviously. It's a thing. It makes government life easier in terms of as people use these things. But eventually these people go to these encrypted other apps.

It just goes on and on in terms of chasing these people. And if you give a backdoor to Apple, they go to another app, they go to another app, whatever one they're using. And it just – it never ends and it makes everybody more vulnerable. So anyway, it goes on. We're going to move on because Google joined Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft to become the fourth trillion dollar company in the world. They're creating enormous value for shareholders. This is, as you've been talking about, you own these stocks. We've talked to lots of people about this idea of where they go in the future and how they get bigger than ever.

But it's tax season, and Amazon didn't pay any federal taxes, speaking of which, a trillion-dollar company, on $11.2 billion in profits. I am allowing you to rant right now about this issue. You like the idea that these are trillion-dollar companies as a shareholder. No taxes. Same thing with J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley posted earnings this week showing they saved $18 billion in 2019, more than the prior year, and thanks to Trump's tax overhaul. So, I mean, this is, like, great for a shareholder, not so great for a citizenry. Yeah. So like every other government policy, it is effectively an elegant transfer from the lower middle classes to the wealthy or from small and medium-sized businesses to large businesses. And along the way, we are incrementally gutting the greatest force in mankind, and that's the American middle class combined with capitalism and democracy and a free nation. And slowly but surely, we're eroding that. And our tax policy is just more evidence of this. What big tech is doing

to avoid taxes is they're really the ultimate kind of gangster move here around tax avoidance is international arbitrage. So effectively, Apple can license their IP to an international group in Ireland, and then they tax other high-tax domains a licensing fee to use the Apple brand, thereby suppressing profits in high-tax domains and depressing profits or increasing profits in low-tax domains, thereby decreasing their total tax burden. And the general argument around the tax cuts from Trump were that it would unleash all this corporate investment going from 35 to 21. And there was some validity around the notion that we had to stay competitive. There was a lot of these reverse mergers taking corporate headquarters outside of the U.S. But effectively,

what's happened is big corporations or multinationals are now unable to use this international arbitrage, and their effective tax rate is around 11% or 12%. And that's kind of the effective tax rate for big tech. And what you have now is, if you look through history, you have corporations are now, their total tax burden has been reduced by a third. We thought that was going to result in capex. It didn't. It resulted in share buybacks, which, by the way, benefit shareholders. 80% of shares are owned by, I guess, at the top 10%. That would be you, right? I'm in the 11th percent. I just missed it.

All right, okay. And then you have small and medium-sized businesses that get the majority of their revenues domestically, don't have access to this incredible tool of tax avoidance, and that they're big multinational companies. So like everything else, everything else, it's a transfer of wealth from people who don't have the backbone to think long term, and that is our elected officials. We have to take some blame for that, for not electing the right ones. But if you look at lower and middle income taxes, they haven't gone up, they've stayed the same. Corporate taxes have

gone way down, as have taxes on the top 1% who are now paying a lower tax rate than everybody else. And effectively, the real result of this, and what it turns us from economic policy to a moral issue, is that our GDP or our taxes, they're not historic. We're going to do $1 trillion of our deficits, I should say. Our deficits aren't historic. We're going to do $1 trillion deficit this year. It was bigger in 2011 because we were trying to get out of a recession. As a percentage of GDP, they are now 5 or 6 percent. Again, that's not historic. In 1943, to pay for D-Day and Iwo Jima, they were at 24 percent of GDP. Yeah, I thought those were good things. What is historic about these tax rates is that if you look at the ratio of debt to GDP, that number, and then you look%. And then when unemployment goes low, when unemployment goes to 3%, typically that deficit to GDP plummets to 1%, sometimes 0%, and during the Clinton years, even positive.

What is historic about our approach to the deficit right now is that for the first time in history, we have a deficit to GDP of 5% in an era of record unemployment. So basically, we have decided the deficit is no longer ibuprofen, it's no longer an anti-inflammatory, it's cocaine to keep this party going. Which it is. What's immoral about this is that I love this notion of this construct, and I'll wrap up because I know I'm blathering on, but that money is effectively the transfer of work and time. If I give you money or if you give me money, you're awarding someone time. With loved ones, you're awarding them the inability not to have to work as much. And when we have these kind of record deficits that are now the

interest on these deficits in this exceptionally low interest rate environment is now greater than what we spent on national defense. If these interest rates double, what we're effectively looking at is we as a nation have decided collectively that we are going to borrow or take time with loved ones from our kids and our grandkids such that we can have more. So this has become a moral issue. We are trading in our kids and our grandkids. And we're giving it to rich people, corporations that can take advantage of these multinational arbitrage. Anyways, that's my rant. I think this has become a moral issue. Oh, that's a good rant. That's full of math and everything else. This is not good. This is what,

basically what Scott Gallery is saying. This is not good, mathematically speaking. Obviously, we're not at Davos, which is happening right now. The president is going there. It's the World Economic Forum. We have both been there. I find it a place where rich people lick each other up and down, and so I tend not to want to attend. But Donald Trump is there. Greta Thunberg is there. Uber boss Dara Krosh-Rashahi is there. Mark Benioff told me he was going.

Trump will give a speech on Tuesday, the day his impeachment hearing starts. So climate change has been one of the discussions happening. That's why they're having Greta Thunberg speak there. But these gatherings seem so, like, ridiculous at this point. And maybe it's just me who just has gone to these things and has sort of seen sort of the wheels turning in a way that I don't like, that it's so clear. Exactly what you're talking about, which is that everybody else is paying the price for rich people. Yeah, and it just goes back to something you were talking about, climate change. Climate change, income inequality, decaying infrastructure, we're going to need well-funded governments.

And the idea that we've decided governments don't need to be well-funded is unusual. In general, I think you're wrong about rich people licking each other. Generally, I find rich people pay less rich people to lick them. But so that's our one point. That's our one point. That's our one point. That's our one point of departure here. It's just... I generally think,

I think Davos deserves the criticism and the cynicism, but I generally find that these gatherings are a good thing. And my experience at Davos is that... Because people get together. That's what Benioff was telling me. You get to know other people.

You understand them. I ended up hanging out with some guys from the Gulf. And I've always, I don't want to say, I think like a lot of people, I have a tendency to stereotype people. And I've stayed kind of in loose contact with them. And I think I understand them a little bit better. But I think people getting together from different, they're just likely, they're less likely to declare war on each other when we get together on a regular basis. I suppose. It's just like so much money like Washington.

These parties, those ridiculous parties. I'll have to say, I agree with you. I've just been obsessively reading about Mohammed. The New York Times had a big Zayed at the United Arab Emirates. He's running it. He's the richest guy in the world, I think. He's $1.3 trillion in wealth that is at his disposal. That's almost more than Putin.

Yeah, exactly. And he's been, you know, super close to the Trump people. There have been several really fascinating stories about him and his decision that autocracy is better than Islamicism. And it's been really interesting. I think he's there. And I do agree with you. It's good that these people all go there. I just don't think everybody gets access. And when you're talking about this issue of the rich getting theirs and they have these meetings and decide things, it's just – it's part of that elitism. And there was a real pushback to Davos a couple of years ago if you remember the protests. I was there one of the years. There was a lot of protests.

That sort of died down. It sort of died down. And while they talk about climate change, the idea of doing something about it seems far-fetched at this point, just even if they have Greta Thunberg there. I don't know how she got there on a bicycle or whoever she gets there. But it's really, I find it, I agree. I just feel so uncomfortable in those salons and those parties of which, if anyone's been there, the parties are insane and the wine is insane and the food is insanely expensive and beautiful and everything else. That's not the way I want my representatives to behave, but that's just me. Yeah, it's an unusual gathering.

I think on the whole, I think what Professor Schwab has built I actually think is productive for the world. I think the world is a net gainer from Davos, but I think the scrutiny they get and when they show up and talk about climate change and then board their Gulf Streams, it's important that the media highlight the inconsistency there. But in general, I think it's good that people get in a room with other world leaders and say, hey, we're having problems at the border. I just think it's good that people get in a room with other world leaders and say, hey, we're having problems at the border. I just think it's good when people get together. I guess.

I guess. I think the fix is in, Scott, just the way they don't pay taxes. I'm starting to turn into Elizabeth Warren radical, according to The New York Times or something. But you've been radicalized by YouTube. YouTube, right, exactly. But it's just, I think there's a lot, people have a lot, hearing whatever Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders is saying has a lot of resonance for a lot of people. It does, yeah.

Much more so than you realize. Anyway, we have to take a quick break. We'll be right back with a friend of Pivot. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

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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? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Welcome back. So this week, I did an interview with Franklin Leonard on Recode Decode. He is the film executive and the founder of The Blacklist. The Blacklist is a yearly survey of the most liked screenplays that were not greenlit, lots of which were not big blockbuster action films but more unconventional characters like Juno, Spotlight, and Slumdog Millionaire.

Because of The Blacklist, people notice them, and a lot of them go on to be produced. And last week the Oscars, after basically not paying attention to this in any way, nominated a lot of them go on to be produced. And last week, the Oscars, after basically not paying attention to this in any way, nominated a bunch of white men. Again, not to say white men aren't talented, but you know there are a lot of stories that aren't about World War I and race car drivers. He wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post on how that did not need to be the case. So we asked him whether he thinks the streaming wars will have an effect on who will be represented in movies and television in the future. Let's go to the tape.

I think that, you know, increased competition for talent in the business will require people to look further afield than the traditional places they've looked. And the sort of insane size of their slates means that those people will be left alone to make the things as they see fit, which I personally believe will make it more likely that the stuff will be high quality. Not only that, it's good business. I personally believe will make it more likely that the stuff will be high quality. Not only that, it's good business. If you're trying to make money by making content, you'd be a fool to not be focused on a strategy that includes a full embrace of the country's diversity. These companies need to hire women and people of color, both as talent, writers, directors, producers, etc., but also in the boardroom. And separate from hiring them, they need to give them the resources in order to realize their vision and empower them to do so with real autonomy because they know better their audience than likely the people that are hiring them. All right, Scott, what do you think about this? I mean, Oscar So

White is back, as you know, and then it was coupled by the Grammys controversy. They had hired a woman to shake up everything, Deborah Dugan, and then fired her over what sounds like trumped up charges because of the sort of old boys network at the Grammys. What do you think? What do you think about this issue and what Franklin is saying? Well, I think it's hard. I think that's so hard to argue with. Where I think it starts, though, is earlier again with education, that is I'm a big believer in affirmative action, which at the end of the day, let's be honest, is discrimination when you pick one kid because of the color of his

skin over or the color of her skin over other people. But I think that education, I think if you have more people of color going to the greatest film school in the world, and that is the UCLA School of Film, and also the distant seconds and thirds, NYU and USC, that's some Bruin pride coming through, by the way, Kara, then that you're going to have more people of color collecting gold statues. I think it's important that the greatest upward lubricant and means of advancement for economic power and to contribute to our society and to make our economy more robust because companies perform better. We're better when there's more diversity that has economic power and the ability to tell these stories. But I think where you start is not with these kind of what I'll call artificial means of,

you know, different awards or categories, which I just don't think work. I think it's ensuring that people of color have the same access to opportunities, including grad school, such that they can get on stage. They are making the movies. Look at Netflix and others. There's much more diversity now in terms of movie making. And there were plenty of choices in this year's Oscar. I mean, J. Lo was robbed. I'm sorry. If you saw that

performance and the fact that she was not even named. Greta Gerwig, another amazing film. So you think it's racism? You think it's that people... I think these awards matter from a... You know, this is a worldwide television show. They are making these movies and they're not getting the recognition and comparison. And whenever there's a black movie or like Black Panther or a woman's movie like Little Women, which both did amazingly well at the box office, they're seen as an outlier.

Oh, look at this. I think it's a mentality in Hollywood of this good old boys network that still exists that does this voting, even though they've been trying to get the committee that all the people that vote for the Oscars to be more diverse. And they have added lots of people overall into the mix. And they've been trying to do that. That is 100 percent right. It still remains in such areas like the director's area or others. I mean, the difference between 1917 and Little Women, I think, is ridiculous. Which one did you see of these movies?

Well, I fall into the exact stereotype, and that is I'm a white dude, and I was dying to see 1917. I went and saw it this weekend, and I absolutely would have voted for that for Best Picture over everything. I thought it was incredibly good. Because who am I?

I'm an old white guy that comes home and watches documentaries on Hitler. I mean, that's how I relax. And you're right, unless- Well, everybody watches documentaries on Hitler, but go ahead. I'm exhibit one of what you're talking about. And that is, unless you have more people not like me

who can appreciate different types of movies, we're going to continue to, 1917 is going to continue to win. And I think it deserves to win. I think it's an amazing film, but I'm sure Little Women is an amazing film too. So I agree with you. What do you do? Then what do you do? How do you think the tech industry could benefit? Like, we did talk in the interview about, you know, the Googles and the Amazons and the Netflix is moving in here, creating more of a diversity. Although I was like, you know, frankly, you might want to look at the top echelons of these companies, which is very similar to Hollywood. But it's the idea of appealing to lots of audiences. I also interviewed Numa Perrier, who just did a great movie on cam sex in the 1990s. She was a cam girl,

did online sex online. It was a great, fascinating story. And she's backed by Ava DuVernay's Array films. But they're getting noticed and they're getting funding from some of these other outlying areas. But you would think with more and more producers in the mix, like, or content, think with more and more producers in the mix, like, or content, people who pay for content, like Amazon or Netflix, there would be more of a push for these kind of movies to get ahead. And you just, it's sort of like tech and the management. It just never changes. It is changing. I think the glass is half full here. And even just the notion, I mean, there's two things you can do. And is what you're doing and that is money speaks louder than anything here and if if if great movies that tell stories about and and by women and people of color make more money at the

box office more of them are going to get produced the studios see an incentive and pimping them for awards because that increases their box office take post them getting awards and again the gentleman that just died the director that did boys in the Hood, a fantastic film, James Singleton, was that his name? Yeah. I think he was the first black director ever nominated for an Oscar. He went to USC film school. We need more people of color in film school because it starts an upward cycle. There's been one woman, I think like one or two women as directors and the one

that won, of course, did a dude movie, like essentially. And I don't know. I just, it's the same. It's the same kind of thing. What are your ideas? So move to solution. What do you think we do? I'm not sure. I don't know. I just, I honestly don't know. The same thing with tech. I really, it just continues to be the same way. And the, you know, the amazing grip on power that white men have over certain industries is really quite, you know, they're not letting go. It's interesting. It's really interesting to say that. Was the one woman who won, was that for Zero Dark Thirty? Yes, yes.

God, that was a great movie. See, there I go. White guy again. It was a great movie. Talking about the killing of Osama bin Laden. All I can tell you is Jennifer Lopez was a revelation in Hustler. She was amazing. And the fact that she did, that just drove me nuts.

All of them. Greta Gerard. Have you seen Little Women? Probably not. I have not. You didn't go? I have not. Why?

Because it's called Little Women? You like big women? No, I like movies about war. And I mean. This is about war? They're fighting. The sisters fight. Here's what I want you to do.

I want Scott Galloway to go see Little Women. And then I want you to come back. Okay. All right? And I want to talk. I want you to go drag your ass, take your sons to it, go all of you. I couldn't get my sons to go. It was really irritating.

My kids are 9 and 12. Are they going to enjoy Little Women? Yes, of course. Yes. It's very beautiful. Yeah. Just go see it. And then I want to know what you think.

I'm sure I'll love it. And then you yourself can go see Hustlers. It's about strippers. You'll like it a lot. In any case, I'm very pissed. Now we're going to do wins and fails. And my fail, I'm going to have your thing. We're going to talk about your continued rant speaking.

This is all about sexism this week. I'm on a thing. Your rant on Sheryl Sandberg. We're going to play some of it. Let's go to the tape, and then we're going to have it out. We effectively have a woman running around the world making billions of dollars telling other women to lean in despite the fact her gross negligence let a platform be weaponized so we could elect an illegitimate president who is putting people on the Supreme Court who are

slowly but surely eroding a woman's rights. Sheryl Sandberg is the worst thing that happened to women in the last 50 years. Scott, as I have said many times, Zuckerberg avoids responsibility while Sandberg takes the fall. I'm sorry, I just don't say, I get why you want to focus on her, but he really is where the buck stops. And in so many ways, within the shareholders, within the power, within everything that went wrong at that company, it's his company. The amount of ire she gets compared to him seems smaller, except by me, Kara Swisher. Anyway, explain to me your thinking on this. I think you're right. And I think that's a little unfair. I have publicly on CNBC, CNN,

and I have tapes of producers said that I think Mark Zuckerberg is the most dangerous person in the world. I've called him a sociopath. I think you're right. I think the buck begins with him. I think he should be fired. I think he is a 95% stock decline away from having an orange jumpsuit. So I think you're right. I think the buck stops with him.

I think he's ultimately responsible. But that doesn't stop me from also highlighting the inconsistency of someone who uses an important discussion around gender at work to serve as fabric softener for him and her. I think there's room for both, but I agree with you. It stops with him. What do you want to happen? What do you want to happen there in that situation? I want the board to feel pressure to fire both and bring in people who are going to show some regard for teen depression, our commonwealth, and our elections. I want there to be so much pressure on these two individuals who have done more damage while making more money than any individuals in the history of business. I want the board to hold hands and say, we've got to make a change here. And you're right. I think the first change has to be the Zuck. Well, except that's not going to be the case, right? I think it could happen. I think it could happen.

How? You keep saying that someone on the board is going to get a dose of bravery. It is not going to happen. It is not. The shares are going great. It could be the next trillion-dollar company, by the way. It's the one that isn't. Yeah, it probably will be.

Probably will. Probably will be. Probably will. Off the back of Instagram commerce is what I think. Yeah, there's nothing. Like, there's no reason to get rid of a CEO in this spot. Okay, get rid of the content decency 230 or whatever it is and start holding these people liable and then start. All right, well, Joe Biden mentioned that.

Do you think that was a win or a fail? I don't think he knows what it is, but he said in an interview with the New York Times, 230 should be revoked because Facebook is not merely an internet company. It's propagating falsehoods they know to be false. No one has said publicly they believe Section 230 should be revoked. Why do you think Biden has decided to differentiate himself? I think he doesn't know what he's talking about, just me. I don't think so either, but I'm disappointed. And I think they've missed an opportunity. I think a lot of income inequality, tax avoidance, some of the – the clip you paid, I was actually at the DCN, the Digital Content – I forget what they are, but basically the OP Online Publishers Association Conference. And if you look at, I mean, just what's happened over the last 10 years or 20 years, there's been just so many negative externalities that have come from big tech, whether it's the number of journalists been cut in half and the number of corporate PR executives tripling, thereby increasing the ratio of bullshit spin to people, you know, the largest police force in the world that's never carried badges or guns. And it's, you know, it's not because of big tech, but big tech kind of embodies it where they now have,

they now have corporate PR departments that are that are larger in numbers than the newsroom at the New York Times. So there needs to be, I think there needs to be a thoughtful conversation around as we've talked about removing the content, you know, CDA, I thought it was a huge opportunity, it was a missed opportunity. It was a missed opportunity for candidates. And the only one who's shown the backbone to start talking about it openly and honestly has been Senator Warren. But I think that the worm has turned. I think the public is very concerned about these people. And it's not only the right thing to talk about, but I think it's an opportunity for a candidate who shows up and actually sounds literate on these topics.

Well, so far, though, the tech thing hasn't stuck with candidates because like little Kamala Harris was talking about Twitter, Warren's tech thing has not gone anywhere. I think people are more concerned about other issues besides beating up on tech. You might be right. I think they're going to sail right out of this, and that to me is a fail, but I think they're going to sail right out of this. And once whoever's in power, I don't think Trump will do anything.

He's gaining from it. He benefits from the entire ecosystem the way it is. And when the Democrats get in place, they want to do it too. They want to have that. They want to have the ability to manipulate the American public in an egregious way. So why not use these tools? I don't know. I don't feel confident of anybody. So I find them all failures, all of them, even though. So the win, I would say, I'm going to do one win, is Bill Simmons. He's a podcaster and someone I know pretty well, and he is in talks to be bought by Spotify. I think that's good for Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. You think? Yes, I do. We'll talk about that. Say more. Say more. Quietly later.

Okay. But this is interesting. It's an interesting thing that Spotify is trying to – they bought Gimlet, obviously. But this podcast thing looks like it has legs. I feel good about it. I feel that's a win. I feel that's a win. Well, there's $17 billion. Just as the success of a company oftentimes is more dependent upon how incompetent the incumbents are versus the actual quality of the company. And that is you'd rather be a good company disrupting an industry with just terrible, fat and happy players than a great company trying to disrupt an industry that's already

fairly well run. And so when you have you've had so much value created by companies going after the media industry because media was opaque, a rip off. You didn't know how you were spending your money. Small businesses couldn't advertise on TV, et cetera. And then you have the podcast industry where they're going after the $17 billion carcass called radio. And if you ever listen to radio after listening to satellite TV, just as when you listen to broadcast TV, it's almost unbearable. everything from CNBC to all over the radio is something called title lock, where they talk about, oh my God, I didn't realize my house could be stolen online by Ukrainian gangs. And they say,

unless you pay us $9.99 a month to protect your title online, you could have your house stolen from you. And I believe that that is unfairly targeting seniors who don't understand that it's very unlikely someone will steal your house online such that they can get $9.99 a month. I don't think ads like that should be allowed to run. And the only places they run are on radio and on bad broadcast television. So anyways, a $17 billion carcass called radio advertising that podcasts are coming for. And I think it's the only ad-supported medium that's growing in double digits right now. And one of the reasons is people, as evidenced by our delightfully yet snarky readovers, ad readovers, people like ad reads from hosts.

Yes, that is where the money is. That's where you get more money. So you and I are in violent agreement on how just fucking awesome we are in this whole podcasting medium. We are awesome. We've got to make some trouble, Scott. We've got to meet quietly off to the side. You don't think we're making trouble. You and I, we are capital T rubble. I know, but I was happy for Bill Simmons. I love him. And I think- Oh, you know him? He's a nice man? He's great. He's great. I just, I did a podcast with him. He's really great. I know

he did. He's a great fella. Anyway, that's my win. What is your win win is uh fails gerald sandberg speaking of more white men getting awards peter dinklage won best actor for an actor in a drama series for game of thrones oh game of thrones you're back to that so there's a there's a but there's a wonderful his character is really wonderful in that show and i i spent a lot of time and i'm virtue signaling now but coaching young men and and a piece of advice I give them is sort of similar to what Therian Lannister said, and that is once you own your shortcomings, they can no longer be used against you. And I think it's important for young, especially for young men, to realize, to try and turn your bugs into a feature. And that is to look at the things you're

most insecure about, about your physical appearance, about your shortcomings, and to find ways to make light of them and own them. And it's really liberating. Interesting. And I didn't learn that. That is the whole Scott Galloway jam, isn't it? You know it, sister. You know it. I can see that.

So your entire, that's how you base your life on Tyrion Lannister? Now I see things. Now I understand you so much better. Yeah, there you go. So your whole jam is Tyrion Lannister. Not necessarily the things. Now I understand you so much better. Yeah, there you go. So your whole jam is Terri and Lannister, not necessarily the actor, but the character. That guy's gangster. That guy, come on, the hand advising people. Dinklage.

That's how I would have survived back then. But anyways, I do think there's real value, especially around young people. As people mature, they start making fun of themselves. And it's very liberating, owning it, right? It's like that first psych class you took in college where you realize, oh my God, that's a thing. I'm not strange. Other people suffer from this, too. Interesting. So I like the notion. I think the win is Peter Dinklage in this notion of owning your shortcomings as a means of addressing that. I have a slightly opposite version of that, which is I think women are always constantly looking at their shortcomings. So I always celebrate how great I am.

And I talk about it a lot. Good for you. Because I think women do not celebrate their non-shortcomings, the things that are great about themselves. And they're trained to sort of say, oh, no, or something like that. And so I tend to do the opposite.

No, I do. That is something I really do like about you is you're not afraid to say, I just fucking rocked the house. I think that's nice's that is something i really do like about you is you're you're not afraid to say i just fucking rock the house i think that's nice go over your loss fail okay you'll like my loss it's about a white guy uh so the david brooks wrote an opinion piece oh that guy and and there was actually a couple there was a very interesting point in the opinion he was talking about he basically doesn't buy this notion of says the class warfare is dangerous and that if you uh he cited some interesting statistics here and that income inequality is more between companies than it is within the company. And that is what's driving income inequality is Google is just making so much more than any other company.

But everybody up and down the ladder at Google is making a lot of money. I thought that was an interesting point. And there's some good research from MIT that supports that. Where he lost the script was he said, he pointed that in the last few years, as a percentage of their base, low-income wage earners have increased their wages faster than the top wage earners. And that is just so misleading and so dangerous because effectively, the middle class hasn't had a wage increase in over 30 years. And because it's popped a little bit, there's a kernel of truth in there. But real income, and this is another piece of advice I give to young people, you never get wealthier financial security, or it's very hard to do

off of current income. You need to take current income and immediately start building equity wealth, stocks, bonds, 401k, property immediately, such that you can create passive income, which is where you create unbelievable wealth. And of course, we've decided that the income from money is more noble than the income from sweat and is taxed at a lower rate. And that has resulted in the top 0.1% capturing 80% of the income gains over the last 10 years. percent of the income gains over the last 10 years so the notion that there isn't an attack on the the the the lower earners in our nation that there hasn't been this all out nuclear war on them over the last 30 years is just incredibly intellectually dishonest so my my loss is is is david brooks somehow trying to find uh trying to trying to queer data to show that somehow

there isn't effectively a class war taking place, a war on poor people. Yeah, that's his thing. People like to hate read him, I'll tell you that. That guy, he often makes people angry. But I do like your of the people kind of thing, even while you want to go to Davos. It's kind of a fascinating contrast for me.

I keep waiting for them to invite me back. I am so ready to go again. I never get invited. I've had dinner with Klaus. He's like, we should have you. I hear you're someone interesting. Professor Schwab. It's typical.

Let me just tell you, a lot of men who are less prominent than me in tech have been invited. And I wouldn't go. I went several times as the wife of someone. But it's just an interesting – it's just – I'm sorry. I can't believe you like it. And anyway, all right, Scott, it's always a pleasure. I'll be back in D.C. when I talk to you next. But we will talk later this week.

And remember, if you have questions about a story you're hearing in the news for us to answer, email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Scott, we've come together again. People were worried we were going to get a divorce. Now, read the... We are not, folks. Mom and Dad are together still. That's his foreplay for the dog and the jungle cat. Read the credits, please, Scott

Galloway. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer, and thanks also to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burrows. Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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