Pivot - Trouble at Basecamp, Bezos fights for the moon, and a listener question about dating apps

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

Kara and Scott talk about controversies at Basecamp, as the company rolled out a new ban on internal political talk. They also discuss Jeff Bezos's company Blue Origin petitioning to have NASA revisit the contract it awarded SpaceX to land on the Moon by 2024. In listener mail, we get a question on the Bumble IPO and the future of dating apps. Scott predicts that Elon Musk's SNL appearance may land him in legal troubles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yosemite or whatever, right? I pinged my assistant and said, I just have no idea what to get this person. She's impressive and smart. I don't want it to be. And she's like, a candle. And I'm like, that's genius. A candle is perfect for all occasions. Did you get her the Gwyneth Paltrow vagina candle?

No, those are just for me. Okay. No, I got her the Diptyque. Oh, yeah, that's the one. That's the fancy one. It's the candle. When you don't know what to buy rich people, that's the one. That's the fancy one. It's the candle. When you don't know what to buy rich people, that's what you buy them.

Hello. Hello. So, Daddy hung out with Joanna Coles and Jack is in Jack Daniels, and I'm paying the price now. Yeah, I knew. You too. I wouldn't even want to think about a party between you. I heard she has a hip apartment and everything else because she's a hip lady. She's super hip.

Yeah. She is super hip. She is super hip. She is super hip. Oh, but you know what? I invited my Twitter boyfriend, George Hahn, the first time I got to meet him. And? He's lovely. Yeah. He's smart and funny and handsome.

And he has, I think, a really nice, I don't know, real authentic and real soul. Was the meeting awkward, the initial meeting, since you were Twitter pals? No, we like each other. And it kind of was nice. since you were Twitter pals? No, we like each other. And it kind of was nice. It was sort of when I was,

I'm thinking about one of the, one of the nice things or, I don't know, from tragedy comes inspiration is he's a guy I met or I just started corresponding with on Twitter. And we become friends and it was just very rewarding to finally get a chance to meet in person.

We're both vaccinated. He could have been a stalker, like a crazy person, you know? You know what? I'm just saying. I could use a couple stalkers. That is fair. Okay, that's not funny. Stalkers are not funny. No, that's not funny. That's not funny. We do not back stalkers here at Pivot, except for Scott Galloway does. That's good. That's great. Who else was there? You care to say? I probably shouldn't. All right. Because they haven't signed a release form. All right. But, you know, as you can imagine, Joanna's friends are really, you know, smart, nice.

Yeah. A professional poker player. That was interesting. Oh, that's interesting. Speaking of poker, what's Rudy Giuliani going to do? His apartment and office are being searched as part of an investigation

into whether Mr. Giuliani broke lobbying laws as President Trump's lawyer in connection to deals with Ukraine. What do you think the answer to that is? So let me listen. We contacted our friend Preet Bharara, and he did not have time to give us a special thing. But here's what he said. We don't want to know what the dog thinks.

We want to know what Preet Bharara thinks. I'll ask what you think in a second. But let's listen to what Preet, our gentle lover Preet, says. But it's very, very significant. It's a very aggressive step. I know the folks at the SDNY. I hired a lot of them. And they would only do something like this that's so significant if they believed very strongly, based on the facts and the law, that there's something worthwhile pursuing here.

Yeah, that's what they all say. But nonetheless, he hired most of them, just FYI. What do you think, Scott? What do you think of the Rudy situation? Well, let's just break down that comment. Okay. Hold on. Let me just interpret what he said.

I'm a fucking baller, and I'm going to say nothing. Okay. I'm a baller. And he said this is serious shit. At this point, I know joke, and I don't know the semantics of this type of defense. I think a viable defense for Rudy Giuliani, should he ever end up in court, is insanity. But look at where this guy was 30 years.

He ran the Southern District. He did. He was the district attorney. And now he is, it appears, he is showing this reckless, wanton approach to breaking the law. Yeah. He says he knows how not to break the law, by the way, because he did all that. Just he said that. But I agree with Preet. It just looks as he's been cohorting with Ukrainian operatives. Yeah. I mean, it's just what, I think at this point, his behavior,

and they could show clips from Bora, I think you could really assemble a credible insanity plea here. Yeah. That's true.

Did you see his son who looks like Will Ferrell? You know, going on and on about how this is a miscarriage of justice. We should all be scared. I'm not scared.

I'm not scared, Andrew Giuliani, because I don't cavort with Ukrainians. Yeah, I don't. And take whatever, whatever the heck he was doing plus he should spend some time in the big house just for that hair dye yeah that is criminal man that would be something well michael cohen went down for less apparently so and he was in the jail i think it's i i it's just strange it shocks me that anyone would get near i'm shocked me anyone would go to the buffet at Mar-a-Lago because this guy.

Anyone near Trump has gotten Michael Flynn. They all did. They all except for Trump. You get your reputation ruined or you have the FBI show up in the middle of the night and take your electronics to try and. Yep. I mean, it's just. Maybe they're just bad people around him. I could be.

I don't know. I'm hastening a guess here. Anyway, it's interesting. It will be a great story and actually a very good movie at some point. By the way, speaking of fighting that's going on,

we'll see. I think Giuliano will kick and scream his whole way to prison, essentially. Speaking of kicking and screaming, last week, a judge ordered the work be stopped on the $10 billion cloud computing project for the Defense Department called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Project, also known as JEDI. The sealed opinion, which I've heard a lot about, and it's not that sealed, is a big win for Amazon, who says the contract was unfairly awarded to Microsoft because of President Trump's distaste

for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. So this was the contract that Bezos looked like he had won. Then apparently Trump interceded, and then it went to Microsoft in the end. Bezos also took aim at Elon Musk and his contract with NASA around the moon base, essentially moon stuff they're going to be doing and stuff. So Bezos, by pushing back and suing, Bezos has a win here, but we'll see where it goes. Now it has to keep going on. But I can't imagine the Biden administration defending a Trump administration effort to stick it to Jeff Bezos, but we'll see.

Well, I don't know. Let's find out what Preet thinks. What do you think? I bet there's teeth here. I mean, you're coming off an administration that thought they could hand out contracts like they were seats at a political fundraiser. And it was fairly apparent with this whole TikTok shit show circus weirdness that Trump likes Microsoft. So I don't think... No, in that case,

he liked Oracle better than Microsoft. Remember? But did he sort of like Microsoft? He did. He initially had a talk, but he wanted a VIG and I think they didn't...

Microsoft acted like a normal... Look, here's the deal. Microsoft is perfectly capable of doing this infrastructure. They got tarnished by this. Anything Trump touches tarnishes you, even the affiliation. 100%. Yeah.

So I don't think we've heard the last of this. I think they probably have. I mean, $10 billion is serious cabbage. And I think they'll probably find, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up having to redo it or redo that. Which is a problem because they need to do it now. It just wouldn't be a surprise. They need to get this stuff done now. I mean, especially with solar winds and all this other stuff.

That's a great point. You know who's the win for? Russia, China. You know what, Kara? You're exactly right. Nothing is as oppressive as a feeble and weak government. And that's what we had for four years. Yeah, his obsession with Jeff Bezos is strange.

But Jeff is doing a lot of lawsuits. Everybody wants these defense contracts or government contracts. And this is where the big business for Amazon, for Google, for Microsoft, these are big, they're sort of shoving aside, and Elon too, they're shoving aside the Lockheeds and the General Dynamics and all these other people

to do these things, because they're largely cyber-based. And so these are the companies you would go to naturally. By the way, did you see Apple's earnings? Yeah. Oh my God. Killing it. Oh my God. Their revenues were up 54%. The iPhone sales were up 66%. Yeah, it's a good iPhone. Sales in China were like up 85%. It's just staggering how many cylinders this company is firing on. Yeah, it's interesting, sort of the attacks on the- Two-thirds of their sales are outside the US.

I mean, they're incredibly well diversified. Their services revenue grew 20%. I mean, I'm like, Jesus. They can go in any direction here. They can. Incredible. Health. We have to buy that Peloton. Peloton's sort of suffering a little because of some problems around its trade. Supply chain. And who's got the best supply chain in the world?

Tim Cook. Well, I don't know. Apple. Tim Cook. You know what? But again, you know where I think they're going. Where? I think the $100 billion moment, one of the first moments in business history where $100 billion was transferred in a minute between companies. I'm telling you, Tim Cook's going to get on stage and he's going to roll out a car with an Apple logo on it.

Yeah. Well, he did talk about that with me. And all of us are going to get on that list. Yeah. 100%. Would you get on it? I would get on it. I would. It's interesting because I really have to think about what I would buy if I bought a car. I've written a column saying I won't buy a gas car. But looking at electric— I've been in a gas car with you, Ms. Woke.

I know. I know we— I say owning a gas car. I mean, it was more like a go-kart. It was designed for you. Oh, that one. It's my son's car. That was literally like a lawnmower with doors.

That's my son's car. By the way, you could not put Giant Man in there. Oh, yeah, I know. That's what he said. He would have an elbow hanging out each window. He said we need to get another car, Mom. Because this was my older son's car. By the way, you could not put giant man in there. Oh, yeah, I know. That's what he said. He would have an elbow hanging out each window. He said we need to get another car mom. Because this was my older son's car who's slightly shorter. But yeah, giant man.

He always is like putting his head on the ceiling and thinking it's hysterical. Unless it's like one of those Flintstone cars where there's no floor and he uses his legs to go at 800 miles an hour. He could do that. But yeah, it's interesting. Yes, you're right. I was thinking if Apple did, I'd buy it in a second. 100%. I would buy it in 1.2 seconds.

100%, strongest brand in the world. No question. And I bet they'd figure out a way to do it very easily. But where I was going with that is the moment he unveils, he pulls back that cover, that curtain, Tesla sheds $100 billion, which would, by the way, would only be 16% of its market cap to Apple. You know, Tesla is 80% of electric car sales. And, you know, the whole EV market globally is like one in a, it's like 2 million, and there's $1.3 billion cars. I mean, the EV market is still- Small.

So my dad used to say, you know, when he was a salesman and he would try and, you know, have a moment of like trying to create inspiration for you. He's like, okay, a salesman, one salesman goes to this country and he says, is a shoe salesman. And he says, this is terrible. Nobody wears shoes here. And the other salesman goes and says, this is great. No one has shoes. So, and I'm like, oh, wait, so you want to be the guy that doesn't waste money where they don't. And he's like, no, the glass is half full, you wee little sack. And then he'd hit me across the head. Oh, my God.

Mom. Anyways, hold me, Kara. Hold me. I have learned so much about you in the past week with the visit, the wife, the father. And then he moved in with a flight attendant from Continental Airlines, and I was living in a small apartment in the valley. I've already seen your dad, your son, and you in kilts. I think we're way past that at this point. Anyways, anyways. All right.

So, the point being— Wait, where were we? Where am I? The point being, it's a big opportunity. I think that's what you're talking about. Did I mention I'm hungover? Where am I? Yeah, I know that.

I'm in a room with sound padding. Joanna Coles, you know, once created a sex act with my name on it, the Swisher. Once created a sex act with your name on it? She was on stage at a GOAT event, and she said, what would the Swisher. Once created a sex act with your name on it. She was on stage at a code event, and she said, what would the Swisher be as a sex act? That rendered me speechless. That's her whole goal.

I just want to say that. Yeah, we're not touching that here on Vivit. We're not touching that, but nonetheless, Joanna Coles. Bring in Preet. Ask Preet that question. Joanna Coles literally said that on a public stage, and I was rendered mute.

That was, she was, I have to give it to her. A, that's never happened. No, that's never happened until she said, what would the Swisher be? You know,

she did it in that British voice, that naughty British voice. She's a baller. She's got spacks. She's on boards. She's got spacks. She's all over the place. Anyway,

I don't want to talk about your hijinks with Joanna Coles in New York. All right, let's talk about the big story. Which is the Basecamp controversy. Basecamp is in hot water this week. Here's what happened.

On Monday, CEO Jason Fried sent out a memo announcing the company would be banning employees to hold in, quote, societal and political discussion on the company's internal chat forms. societal, and political discussion on the company's internal chat forms. The memo also said the company would end paternalistic benefits, such as farmers' market stipends and wellness allowances, giving them money instead to do what they will. And then co-founder David, it's Heinemeier Hansen, followed his memo with his own expanding on the controversial ban. And they kept putting out more and more memos as things got hot. According to Article on the Verge,

the events that led up to ban was the circulation of an employee-generated list of names representatives found funny. Actually, Casey Newton wrote that story on the platformer, found funny, many of which were making fun of non-American Anglo-Saxon names, although they also made fun of Anglo-Saxon names.

The announcements at Basecamp are similar to workplace decisions made at Coinbase, sort of. It's a little more complicated than just that they did this. There's all kinds of back thing and a lot of their employees are on,

they only have 60 employees actually or about 58, are on the board saying this is not what, what they're representing is not what happened. They just had a diversity inclusion committee.

They got David, the EHH as he's known, who's very volatile if you see him on Twitter and anything else. They got into it over something, and then he just did this because he just didn't want to talk about it anymore. And this group, this diversity and inclusion committee had just gotten started in February, and half the employees signed up for it. So it's kind of a little more complex than just sort of these CEOs doing this. I happen to like Jason Fried a lot. I think there's a little bit of a black eye for him, the way they rolled this out, but it's also what a lot of CEOs are thinking. They don't want to listen to their employees anymore. And Silicon

Valley has given their employees a great amount of ability to speak. And now that they're speaking, they don't want to hear them speak anymore. What do you think? Yeah, I think there's a place. I think that companies, so companies, when they start donating a lot of money to political action committees and putting, you know, squares in certain fonts saying Black Lives Matter, they kind of have dipped into the political pool and they can't decide when they want to be in and when they don't. And with a more politically conscious generation that every tech firm is trying to attract, it's understandable that these, and in a kind of a full employment economy, it's understandable that employees now

have, you know, want to know the company's viewpoint. But at the same time, you're right to express as a company, and we personify companies, which I just think is weird, but you're right or your expectation that a company has a political viewpoint or weighs in. A political viewpoint is also to not have one and to be apolitical. And I do think there is room. I don't know, Kara. I think there's more. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I do think there's people out there that don't live and breathe politics and want to go to work and create economic security for them and their families. Certainly. And have good relationships with their colleagues and not find out that the guy or gal next to them is a Trumper or really far left and start and bring that bullshit to work.

I do think that there's a lot of people that say, I get it. But if a few companies decide that, you know what, we are about, we are a fantastic legal entity where we bring human resources together and intellectual property to help all of us create economic security for us and our families, such we can put food on the table. And then on evenings and weekends,

if you want to go to a Bernie or a QAnon rally, that's your business. Right. But we're not going to be in that business. That makes sense for people who didn't let them do it for years and years and then don't want to listen to them now. This is, it's sort of. Are you talking about the tech community or this company specifically? Yeah, tech community, literally.

I've never, in fact, I used to be like, why are they letting all these employees say all these things? You know what I mean? But they did. That's what they did. say all these things, you know what I mean? But they did. That's what they did. They raised, they did all the virtue signaling around and like, here, have a meme generator, meet the CEO on Friday and tell us whatever

you think, etc., etc. About politics, though? The difference has been opened up. Everything. Everything from politics to, I don't like the kombucha. Like, I have been in these things and I cannot believe them sometimes, sort of. And they have raised a generation of people saying, talk all

you want. And when you don't, when they decided it got a little too tiresome for them, it made them slightly uncomfortable. And they were starting to discover things about hiring and salaries and stuff like that. They wanted them to shut up. I think it's a very, I don't think, I agree with you. It's complex to start these things at work. And every workplace I have has this problem where people bring their whole selves to work. But what about after the riots, not letting people talk about it? That's insane. That's insane. It's just, it used to be around a water cooler versus on an internal board.

And people are remote. I just don't buy that every company feels, people feel a need to have catharsis at work. I agree, but these companies let people do that. Well, I'll tell you, I'll give you a tip. So, I've been the CEO of several companies and my startups, and we had all hands every Friday. And whenever anyone brought up an issue that was, you know, they were upset about or they complained about or when they were ever unhappy with our approach to anything, you know what my response was? Yeah. That's what the money's for. All right. Get back to work. That's because you said that at the beginning. That's what I'm saying.

I'm just saying they created these things and then got uncomfortable. And it does smack of white men being uncomfortable with some things because, you know, this is, they just pretended it was a group of people at this company and then it really wasn't a group of people. A group of white men. That's not a good thing to be a politician. It is. It's true. It's white men uncomfortable. Let me read you some tweets. Most of these companies are run by white guys and they don't like hearing this. Now listen. And they're also famous for talking

about having a different type of workplace for their books. All right. Let me just read it. I work at Basecamp and I co-spearheaded the DEA council formation. I've seen people ask what DEI council did to warrant such a response. The answer is nothing. We formed in February and we're still getting ourselves organized. They pointed to this council, which

they've never done anything. Another one, excited to read the new Shut Up and Work book by Basecamp Guys. Before they said, you should talk at work. For some reasons, I'm becoming increasingly more shook by this Basecamp post. Like, I don't even work there, but it feels like a signpost to the future of what's to come across the industry.

White men are tired? Try being a black person. I'm fucking exhausted. Love that Basecamp marketed itself on rejection of capitalism and company culture for literal decades to pivot into the purest form of capitalist white enterprise where only your work matters because inherently you're not a human, just a means of production.

This is from Erica Joy, who I always think is very smart. Lots to be said about this, but I have a meta thought. Some companies have recently created policies that are eerily similar to this. They just don't have the gumption to publish them publicly. I wonder who is leading and who is following. And then two more. I'm going to read two more. Deeply disappointed by the latest Basecamp announcement,

I stand by my recent comments about this historical moment. Social contracts are being renegotiated. In the process, we will discover the limits of many leaders. Basecamp to Apple, we do all the work. We deserve more than 70%. Basecamp to employees, you deserve 10%. I'm just saying, it's a really complex topic. They were signaling and signaling.

And this is the last one, actually. If you insist on reading between the lines of the Basecamp thing, I'm seeing reduction in benefits, shift to profit-based comp, offer of severance packages, hiring freeze since 2019. To me, it looks like layoffs with some anti-woke noise as a distraction. It's very complex, I'm just saying. I'm not going to say this is the greatest stand by people who don't want wokeness at work. It's bullshit. I just have never wanted unemployment to go up such that we had to deal with a few of these whiny little bitches called tech employees.

Okay. Jesus Christ. No, they made them this way, and they should be able to talk. And by the way, if something happened, when a shooting happens or the George Floyd thing, people should be— That escalated fast. I'm just—no, I think there's places where you can't. I agree that some of these boards go crazy, but they've let them do it. And now they've got to have a smart talk and then actually deliver. It's hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

And they have to actually deliver more diversity in a significant way. Actually, Casey Noon had a good take on it. It'd be great to call in Casey, except we can't because he's having breakfast with pre-fucking Barabba right now. Casey's piece was excellent. And actually, Casey came down where I am, by the way. It's really, it's a little more. That's a shocker. That's a shocker. That's a shocker.

No, but he did a great recording. He's like, look, they got into a big old mess and they didn't know how to get out of it. Casey Newton. You know what? What? Swish or Casey Newton. We love each other. Do what I just did there.

Okay, I got that. I got that. Got it. Anyway, all right. We're going to have to talk about more, but I think it's a little bit more than anti-woke. We're protecting it. These people, this is a really complex situation. It deserves to be talked about. Those two talk a lot. I'm hoping

to get to talk to them. You know what will fix this problem is when they miss their earnings and they're in danger of going out of business. Oh, you know what? Fine. If it was any other, if it's like P&G, I get it. These companies have let this go on for a long time and then when they're real soon... Let's talk about the actual business. I don't know much

about Basecamp. They have productivity software and then they've tried to do an email thing and I think they're running soon- Do you think Basecamp is a good- Let's talk about the actual business. I don't know much about Basecamp. Do you think it's a good business? They have productivity software, and then they've tried to do an email thing, and I think they're running against a wall for that. And they're fighting with Apple, by the way. There's that Apple thing in terms of they fought with them over that thing. They get very high and mighty when it comes to Apple,

and then when it's their own thing, it's complex. It's complex, Scott. That's all I'm going to say. It's complex. Oh, my God. Everyone shut up and work. You don't do that. You don't do that.

You don't do that. And people can't do that anymore. That's what the money's for. It's a different workplace, my friend. Anyway, and you know what? Buy your own fucking snacks. Like that man, I'm exhausted by these people. That's my motivational poster.

Buy your own damn snacks. It just points out that they run the show, and they pretend they don't run the show, and they do run the show. That's the message I get, is that they do it damn well, please, but they pretend they don't, and they give signals that they run the show and they pretend they don't run the show and they do run the show. That's the message I get is that they do as they damn well please, but they pretend they don't and they give signals that they don't. Thank you. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back to talk about Bezos fighting for the moon and a listener mail question. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle.

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Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Okay, Scott, we're back. Bezos, as we talked about, sort of won this round with Microsoft on the Jedi contract. He's not giving up on the moon that easily, Elon. This week, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Blue Origin, where he's spending a lot of his time

and he's going to be stepping down from Amazon very soon, submitted a 159-page petition to the Government Accountability Office contesting NASA's decision to use SpaceX9-page petition to the Government Accountability Office contesting NASA's decision to use SpaceX on their next trip to the moon. As a reminder, SpaceX is run by Elon Musk, who also runs Tesla and Boring, etc. Last week, NASA awarded a contract to the company for $2.9 billion to land astronauts on the moon by 2024. The goal is to have a moon base where they take off and do other things in the end. In a petition, Blue Origin said

NASA has executed a flawed acquisition for a human landing system program and moved the goalposts at the last minute. Their decision to eliminate opportunities for competition significantly narrows the supply base, not only delays, but also endangers America's return to the moon. So then there was a Twitter feud. Elon

Musk tweeted, besides the fact that he called himself the Doge father, he tweeted, can't get it up to orbit, LOL. Those are fighting words in the land of midlife crises. Oh, God. Anyway, so does Blue Origin have a point here? Is really Jeff Bezos bruised ego? He loses out to Elon on a lot

of these things. Elon's way ahead in the whole space business. And Jeff, it feels like a hobby. But what do you think? Well, I mean, didn't we just hear about Jeff complaining somewhere else? Yeah. Not fair. Yeah, not fair. I don't know. I would, I probably, if I were on the board of Amazon, which will never happen. Yeah, never happen. If I were on the board, I'd say, Jeff, let's pick one or the other. We're either going to go after- He's leaving. So he'll be like, go fish. No, what I mean is if we're going to complain and cry foul, I would do it once, not twice.

Because as soon as you hear he's also crying foul at NASA, in addition to the CIS decision around Jedi, it it begins to feel like a pattern in the sky. It's just, can't take an L. But by the way, I also read and go, I think that Trump was calling these obsequious weirdos, incompetent people that he put in charge of very important organizations and saying, hey, I think we should pick so-and-so. And unless they said yes, he was going to start insulting them and fire them. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was, I mean, there's politics in there. To think that these are apolitical decisions is probably naive, but there's probably, I don't doubt there's some credibility and legitimacy to these complaints. Although I think SpaceX and everything I've read has beat out Boeing, that SpaceX really does a better job

and has fantastic engineers. But I think that's a bad look. I would have picked one or the other, not both. There's a pattern here, and it's not a good look that he's constantly complaining. Well, this is his next business, though. He's really going to devote a lot of attention to it. So I think he's not going to back off.

He wants to get these contracts. He's going to have to put up the dough and get going on the innovation if he really wants to. I think Elon has spent years really ingratiating himself. I don't mean that in a negative way with this business, with doing the rocket launches and doing all things. And he's going to get competition, just like with everything else. This is very expensive competition. He's also in, Lockheed's not happy. The rest of, probably all the other ones that are involved, and I don't know all their names. But, you know, Jeff is, it looks like Jeff really seriously wants to make Blue Origin more than just a I want to live in a space colony floating in the sky kind of thing.

And that's what the issue is, I think. It's interesting. I've always said, all right, the biggest business in the world that Amazon has to go into is healthcare. And the thing I've totally missed, and it just dawned on me. We've got to separate this from Amazon. This is Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin, but go ahead. Is there a separation? Yes.

Other than shareholder and legal entity. Anyway, the biggest business in the world, and it just kind of dawned on me that these companies are now, you know, big tech is now a big player here, not Northrop Grumman and Lockheed, is government. And it's just interesting that both of these are really about multi-billion dollar contracts from government. Sure. There's a very frightening thing here, and that is,

you know, government, the separation between government and private enterprise, it just is, you know, government, the separation between government and private enterprise, it just is all feeling way too close. Well, it's been that way for years. Too many lobbyists. It just feels, it feels really uncomfortable. It's just obvious because these are famous people as opposed to the people who ran Lockheed or General Dynamics.

That's a good point. You didn't know them. I did make that point about government 10 minutes ago. Nonetheless, nonetheless. Where am I? You're just repeating what a lady said. Oh, Jesus Christ. More thinly veiled, like, here I am, another aggrieved white male telling people they can't express their politics at work. My white capitalist, whatever it is. Oh, God. Oh, you shouldn't, you know, be sharper with me than today, but you're not,

because Joanna, see, that was our plot, is to get you unsharp. Well, it worked. It worked. But here's the situation, is that it's become, one, it's become because it's these personalities that are doing this. Two, it's that the government, I think, has an opportunity here to play them off each other all the time because that's how they're like. They love to tweet at each other.

I think the government can have advantage, government here, by, you know, let them spend all their money. Let them do, let them pursue these dreams of rocketry that they've had since boyhood, and now they have the money and means to do it. And I think it's probably good for the government to have all these players sort of vying to build a moon base or whatever it is. Because the government's got to have partners in these things. They're way too expensive. And NASA, I think, is being very clever sidling up to them.

A hundred percent. But we'll see which one prevails. I think it'll be interesting to see when Bezos is only doing this, right? This is his only job, essentially, where he's really focusing in on it. And he's so aggressive that maybe Elon better stop with the silly tweets, because I think Jeff doesn't tweet. He just kills. But it also reflects in a weird way, this, I think, an uncomfortable trend where the greatest concentration of IQ used to be working for our nations.

And that is probably the greatest concentration of IQ at one point was the Nazi rocket program. And then we took the smartest Nazis. We got better Nazis than the Russians did. And then they ended up working at NASA. And the greatest concentration of IQ ever assembled used to be the Manhattan Project, then it was NASA, then it was Lawrence Livermore Labs. Now, by far, the greatest concentration of IQ is at Amazon and at Google, and possibly

Microsoft. And it's just too bad. It's something that's nice, or hopefully that we're reversing, or the trend is reversing. A lot of very impressive young human capital is deciding to go into government or go to get their master's in epidemiology. But it used to be that the best and brightest went to work for the government. And now that's no longer the case. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money.

Yeah, agreed. A lot of money. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see these tech personality feuds, Bezos versus Musk, Cook versus Zuckerberg, et cetera, et cetera, go on. I think there's going to be a lot more of that. And that's how we see it. It's reductive, and yet it's actually true at the same time.

Well, look, Zuckerberg doesn't like Tim Cook because he's a scold. And I think Cook doesn't like Zuckerberg because he's an awful person. He's an awful person, Kara. And the Bezos-Musk thing. I just think Musk is very smart, but Bezos is, I don't know if I would poke that there. Bezos is very disciplined, but the problem is Musk. Here's the thing. If you ever see anybody that garners a disproportionate amount of influence socially in a short amount of time, it's because they have leveraged an emerging medium.

And Musk's kind of, you know, whether it's AOC or Musk or even Trump, Musk's ability to kind of capture a moment in a five, not even five word, but five letter tweet. He does. He is kind of fear. I mean, he's the most fear. Do you know what you have to do if you're Mary Barra and you're the CEO of GM to actually put out a tweet? Do you know how many people touch and massage and mangle that thing? Yep. And the lawyers have got to see it and the PR consultants and say, well, what does this say about Mary Barra? And is this reinforcing our commitment to climate change?

And he just puts down the blunt and starts tweeting. I know. You know what? Look at Dogecoin. Doge what? Look at Dogecoin. Dogecoin. I'm Dogecoin. Oh, my gosh. I mean, now it's up like crazy.

It's like, it's insane. And, you know, there's going to be Doge skits on Saturday Night Live on May 8th. So, I mean, he just, he can. You're stealing my thunder around my prediction. Oh, okay. I won't say anything. All right. Okay.

All right. Okay. All right. Let's go on to listener mail then. Roll the tape. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hi guys. This question is 50 50 for Scott and Kara about a tech company that you guys don't really talk much about. Bumble. CEO Whitney Wolf was an exec over at tender. She didn't like the boys club over there and said, I can do this better.

And she did. She launched essentially a female first product and they went public last month, going toe to toe versus the Titan industry match group. Current valuation is 7 billion on about 600 million in revenue. I've heard arguments that there's several new service lines these guys could launch.

They could do partnerships with bookings or venues, live events, maybe matchmaking. But really, all these entail some considerable risk or downside for the brand if they get it wrong. What do you guys think of the whole industry, the valuations, and where these companies are headed? Thanks. Wow. We don't talk. That's a great question. We don't talk about dating. This company went public really interestingly and did rather well. You know, we're the matchmaking and the other matchmaking company, Matching Company,

is run by a woman also right now. It's a really interesting time for the dating area, which has consolidated sort of and then she has this offering. I think it's a really interesting area for a lot of innovation. The big players like Facebook have tried it.

I don't think, I don't even, what happened to their dating service? Do you hear anything about it or? The only, my only exposure to it is my friend has recently divorced and I'm having so much fun. I wrote his, write his profile and he gets, he shares with me what's going on. Yeah. The thing I think that's fascinating about, or what I take from dating, and this doesn't directly answer this question, but if you look at the digitization or innovation, when a sector gets digitized and it attracts cheap capital and the capital goes to a small number of players, somebody identifies themselves

through innovation and execution as the leader, they attract more and more cheap capital, they can reinvest, and two or three, if not one or two players just pull away and there's a concentration of power. Yeah. There's the same concentration of power or a winner-take-most effect taking place in mating vis-a-vis dating apps, because now I think it's going to be about one in three, probably, marriages are going to start on dating apps. It's incredible how much this has permeated society. And it's actually kind of dangerous because Tinder put out some data showing that if there's 50 women on Tinder and 50 men on Tinder, four men get the

attention of 46 of the women. And so the other 46 men are trying to vie for the attention of four men. There's actually, if you do a Gini coefficient, the mating inequality, and that is the concentration of interest or spoils, if you will, or resources or attention, if that's the resource or swiping right on dating apps, there's actually greater inequality in mating on dating apps than there is income inequality. So if you're worried about income inequality, what happens when you kind of create this incredible skew towards a few people? So, for example, some very unusual things, your zip code and all these things are geotagged, where you live is a big factor. And if people swipe left or right, especially with men,

because if men signal resources, they garner much more interest. And women, it's much more on their, quite frankly, on their looks. And so these, when you have access to everything and everyone has access to everyone else, the perceived top 1%, you start ending up with the same type of inequality and concentration. Fascinating. You know a lot about the dating market.

Well, no, you know what I'm fascinated by? I wrote an article called The Virgin Homicides and I am just absolutely, I'm fascinated by. I wrote an article called The Virgin Homicides, and I am just absolutely, and I'm just blown away by this one stat, and we've said it before and I'll say it again. In 2008, the number of young men under the age of 30 who had never had sex, and people immediately focus on the word sex, so let's just talk, let's just assume it's a component of establishing a relationship and connecting to somebody. I will agree to that. It was 8%. And do you know what it is now, just 13 years later? It's 27%. That's a lot.

And so when young men aren't attaching to work because they're greater unemployment, lower levels of graduate from college, when they're not attaching to school, they're not graduating at the same rates as women, when they're not attaching to school, they're not graduating at the same rates as women, and they're not attaching to relationships, you have the most dangerous person in the world is a broke, angry, and alone young man. It's true. If you look at the most unstable,

if you look at the most unstable, violent nations in the world, it's a lot of young men that have no opportunities for relationships. And then you get mad that I'm saying that these companies run by older white men are aggrieved slightly. All right, listen. How did we get there? I think you're 100% right, but let's get back to his question. Okay, sorry.

If they try to do other things and to build revenue, because they're going to have to. They can't just be dating. What do you think about these valuations of these things? I think these are big opportunities. I do. It's huge, and this is what's going to have to. They can't just be dating. What do you think about these valuations of these things? I think these are big opportunities. I do. It's huge, and this is what's going to happen. It's going to attract other companies. My prediction, or one of my predictions,

do you know who I think is going to be one of the most successful dating app companies in the world in 12 months? Not Match.com, but go ahead. Peloton. Peloton. Oh. Peloton has a community of like-minded,

young, successful, and fit, i.e. hot people. Peloton Oh Peloton has a community of like-minded young successful and fit i.e. hot people and they're already experimenting with a Facebook page their Facebook page

is off the charts in terms of engagement and you're going to start seeing running clubs and it's like and it's going to be it's going to be like those dumb softball leagues

we have here in Manhattan which is basically trying to pretend I'm not dating Were you on one? I never did that. You never did. But that's a thinly veiled match.

Oh, okay. It's thinly veiled Tinder. I always knock an insight out of you. I got to say, I pull you back from the virgin suicide. It's you. That's really interesting. So, John, this is interesting. I think the big ones like Facebook just are going about it the wrong way.

Nobody wants to date on Facebook. Like, it's just they should create a brand. we don't even know it's them kind of thing. But Whitney Wolf is, we should have Whitney Wolf on. She's the youngest woman to take a company public. She's the youngest female billionaire, right? Yes, we should talk to her. I know her a little bit when she got screwed over at Tinder, which was interesting. That said, I do think some of the brands, I think, matches way ahead in lots of ways.

And Tinder is still a very powerful brand. Barry Diller was kind of the first gangster on that. And it's very innovative. I think, you know, my son is using Tinder for the first time. Oh, he's going to hate you for that one. Not the younger one. Of course not. He's not allowed.

No, the older one. No, my older one doesn't care. He thinks it's fascinating. Tinder for giants? Yeah. He is not using Tinder. The other one is. And it's, of of course because my sons are

close we talk because we're healthy in a healthy relationship he has that all that hair and that cooking thing that just solves itself i know a lot i know that's a lot of he has cooking in his i'll cook for you a kind of thing and he looks good yeah yeah he's um he's doing it it's interesting he did get matched with a rather older woman. And I was like. Oh, how did mommy feel about that? Shut up. Don't talk to me. Don't.

We're not going down that road. Trouble at the Swisher household. You know, when he's just four more years, he can do whatever he wants. But he's a little too young to be going out with someone significant. I know exactly what you said. You so much as look at that woman and I'm going to have your younger brother kick your ass. No. I think it's interesting that he was using it. He did it apropos of nothing.

He's like, I was like, oh, okay. Like, he's also, he dates from people he meets in classes and things like that, but it's also that. So, and he likes it. He likes it. I'm just saying. It's a very strong brand. I do think there is, I think the universe. I introduced him to Bumble.

I told him you should try Bumble. I just have more faith in the universe knowing there's a coug told him you should try Bumble. I just have more faith in the universe knowing there's a cougar going after your son. Okay. I just, I love, that has made my morning. That has made my morning. From the Vox Media Podcast Network,

it's Cougar Town. What does Preet Bharara think of your son dating older women? Oh, my God. In any case, he's using a lot. I'm trying to get back to points. You're a saucy mix, Louie. Listen, listen. He's doing case, he's using a lot. I'm trying to get back to points. You saucy mix, Louie. Listen, listen.

He's doing it, meeting people in a lot of ways, but it's interesting. I'm watching him. It's interesting. I'm going to, I wanted to talk to him

about Bumble to see which ones he likes. It's interesting. But he. We should bring him on to talk about it. We should. We're going to.

We will do that. We will bring, we will do that. That is what, that will happen because, and that'll drive Jeff Swisher crazy.

Anyway. Okay. We'll have all the Swishers all over your life, Scott. and that'll drive Jeff Swisher crazy. Anyway, okay, we'll have all the Swishers all over your life, Scott. You've now joined the Swisher town. My mom sat in your house and said you might be gay. Lucky, lucky, who kept saying that over and over. So I thought you were gay. I still think you're gay. And I'd be like, oh, we all laugh uncomfortably. And then we'd say, so you drew down from Vero Beach? And she'd go, literally, she'd go, yeah, it took us about an hour. I thought you were gay. And then she called your wife a model.

She called your wife a model. That was nice. Story of our life. Story of our life. You're a model. Aren't you gay? I still think he's gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

He's not gay. That's his wife. Oh, my God. We forgot that part. My wife. Oh, my God. No. We forgot that part. My mom. He forgot. He met my mom.

He's met her before, but nonetheless, she was in fine form, as they say, sitting in his beautiful. She looked great. You got to give it to her. She looked great. She's a good-looking woman. Anyway. You know what the scariest moment I've had in a while? What?

This woman comes in, starts barking things at, you know, barking things at everybody. Yeah. Your mom's not a young lady. And anyways, I'm like, oh, she's so adorable and she's so little and old and likable. I mean, she looks great for her age, just in case she listens to this. And then what do we do? We put her in a rental car and send her to the highways of Florida. I'm like,

that woman has a driver's license? I cannot stop her. I've tried. That woman has a driver's license? I have tried. I'm going to have to do something about it at some point, but I have tried. That's Florida for you.

Welcome to that. But then again, you brought me to a Trump boat rally. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. And by the way, Scott,

if you are gay, there's nothing wrong with that. 100%. Not too late. One more quick break. And by the way, Scott, if you are gay, there's nothing wrong with that. 100%. Not too late. One more quick break. Not too late. We'll be back for predictions. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere?

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Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca contact.ca. Okay, Scott, you predicted Elon Musk was going to do a Dogecoin sketch on SNL, and he's already tweeting about it. What else do you have?

That was really good. Dogefather. I'm just kind of blown away by this. I don't know if you saw Tesla's earnings, but it did. I think it did 93 cents of earnings per share, but 25 of that. Okay, it was supposed to. Analysts estimated it was going to do somewhere in the 70s. Yeah. And if you miss earnings, the stock goes way down.

And if you beat earnings, the stock typically goes up. You beat expectations, stock goes up. You miss expectations, it goes down. The actual part of the company that builds cars or batteries or solar or whatever did 68 cents. Yeah. But the company reported 93 cents. You know what made up the delta? Doge. Profits from selling Bitcoin.

Bitcoin. So we now have a company that is beating earnings based on its ability to trade in a currency asset equity, which quite frankly, the CEO has tremendous influence over. So, imagine the following. This could be an SEC problem. Go ahead. Imagine the following. You're the CEO of a company, and you're not going to make earnings, and you can put out a tweet that sends the value of a stock or an asset that you have had your company buy soaring. You then sell that inflated currency and juice your earnings and then wash, rinse, and repeat. There is something very uncomfortable about,

and the beautiful thing about the markets, at least to date, is that no one person can control them. And we are getting to a point now where one person can control the markets. He says and they do. He's got a fan base, right? And now he can make up his earnings by doing a tweet saying, Bitcoin's at $60,000. And if Bitcoin goes up, they sell their Bitcoin. Then when it goes down, he might buy some more and a few more tweets. And you're going to see, I think the SNL is going to be in a congressional hearing. Wow. I love this prediction. They're going to do a skit on Dogecoin.

Dogecoin is going to become increasingly volatile around when SNL plays. Because the unique thing about crypto is it trades 24 by 7 versus stocks, which only trade in market hours. Wow, let's watch that carefully. I think the House and Senate committees and the SEC are all going to freak out when they realize we now have one individual who can not only manipulate the markets or, I don't know, pump the markets. I don't want to use the word manipulate because it's really not anything different than any other hedge fund manager tries to do. But now it's starting. He's using it as a cushion or a shock absorber for his earnings. We're in uncharted

territory here. Elon Musk has always taken people to uncharted territories. I'll tell you that. SNL, Dogecoin, Musk, and congressional hearings on our way. Has there been a character like him in history? Is it like, who has been? That's a really interesting point. Is it P.T. Barnum?

What is it? Well, P.T. Barnum, people don't give the credit. The genius, and I learned all of this from Hugh Jackman, that movie about P.T. Barnum? What is it? Well, P.T. Barnum, people don't give the credit, the genius, and I learned all of this from Hugh Jackman, that movie about P.T. Barnum. You know, the guy, P.T. Barnum is considered just a carnival barker, but he was also a genius and, you know, very creative and very interesting product, right? Like, I don't know. I'm trying to think who the equivalent of. Well, there's a little P.T. Barnum in there. Howard Hughes. There's all kinds of people. Yeah, Howard Hughes.

I think Howard Hughes is a really interesting character. Me too. I don't know, what do you... You're in tech more than me. I don't know, I'm trying to sort of... Like, I'm thinking about this fan base. I'm thinking of doing a column on fans, like how this fan thing,

and he is the ultimate fan-haver, and he does use it to manipulate. I was thinking about that, like watching, looking at those earnings and watching how a lot of it was this coin, but then he was talking about it, like, what do you do if you're the SEC and that's happening? Yeah, but I mean, it's not, and people won't like this analogy, but the closest metaphor or analog to Elon Musk in terms of his fearlessness and, quite frankly, his willingness to be inappropriate and have this religious-like following as Trump.

Yeah. And also leveraging a medium. But the thing that— Trump doesn't make nearly as much money. Well, and the thing that's fascinating about Elon Musk is he's clearly a brilliant engineer and an incredible visionary. And I mean, this fearlessness and, I don't know, that part of his brain that doesn't put up filters. Yeah, he does. Basically brings down filters to, oh, you can't do that. And he thinks, well, no, I can land two rockets on two barges concurrently.

He's also, when you interview him, like, he will get mad at you and threaten to leave. And he's, nobody does that. He's so id. He's like an id. Really? Interviewing him is like an id. And then you sort of calm him down. And then he says, you know, he stays, which is interesting.

But I wouldn't be surprised if he walked off an interview of mine at some point. And I don't even mind, because I sort of expect it, which is interesting. Everyone else tries to be polite. I heard him and Louis Swisher are dating. I heard it. I heard it here. Stop. Anyway, we'll see what happens.

This is a great prediction. You know, I made a little prediction. Aren't you gay? Wait, what? I like how you bring that together. This is a nice home. It feels like someone gay did it. Okay, Lucky, get in your compact car and head back to Vero Beach.

Jesus. We'll stay off the road. Anyway, I did a prediction. I said, even if California Governor Gavin Newsom faces a vote of... How did you marry a model? Don't you have sex with other men? Thank you, Swisher family. And you're like, you don't even spend any time with her.

You're like, I don't want to deal with her. You just roam around on FaceTime calls, barking orders at people. I do not. And she's there with her sister. And I'm like, how did I end up here? How did I end up here? For 27 minutes, you couldn't handle it. I'll deal with your dad any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

You bring your dad to me, and we will have a good time. We'll drink a little whiskey. We'll laugh. I'll find out what actually happened to you when you were a young person. Anyway, nonetheless, I'm willing to- He wasn't there for much of that. He's not going to-

I'm willing to host any Galloway you want to bring to us. I heard he makes a lot of money now, so I love him to death. That's probably true. Anyway, I'm going to finish with my prediction. Even if California Governor Gavin Newsom faces a vote of no confidence, he is, quote, not going to lose no matter how many tech dudes in GOP are trying to take advantage of. A hundred percent. Say more.

Say more. Go on. I'm just saying he's on the upswing. Things are going better in California. You know, he may have that little bit of a problem with going to the restaurant, but that's all over. I think he's going to do just fine. What's, I mean, what's with that? This has been a tough time for every state. I just don't understand. I think he's going to do just fine. What's, I mean, what's with that? This has been a tough time for every state.

I just don't understand. I think people are very forgiving of him. Well, not only that, but what's with this movement and all these people, all these, talk about carnival barkers that don't have any actual solutions. A lot of people. Caitlyn Jenner is running, you know, which is interesting. But, you know, this happened before, like, when Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor. But nonetheless, I think he is not going anywhere. He's very popular.

Nobody wants him out. All the polls are showing that way. So he's got to really screw up over the summer. But it did qualify. So we'll see what happens. Anything can happen because now it can happen. But I think he's going to be stronger than ever. Gavin Newsom is not Gray Davis.

Yeah. He's too tall and handsome to recall. That's Yeah. I think he's too tall and handsome to recall. Anyway, he's too tall and handsome. I think he's, he was always had a real, much more tense relationship with the tech people than you realize. Speaking of politicians, you know who I interviewed yesterday on Prop G? Who? Senator Al Franken. Oh, how'd that go?

How'd that go? You know, I think Senator Franken deployed what is a weapon that is not utilized in politics that is just so ripe, and that is humor. He's very funny. You could tell he's really scarred, upset, deeply hurt by what happened to him. And also he said that he would consider running again. So I'm interested to see if that happens. He should. I think he'd be reelected. What do you think?

Yeah, I think people, forgive and forget. Just like I said with Newsom, forget. Those are kind of things. Now, on the other hand, Cuomo, I thought, would get over it. This new report the New York Times says about how much they tried to kill old people. Just not good. Oh, yeah. This is bad.

This is like, if he wins again, it's like gross. It's just so funny. Look at what's happened in terms of public perception of the governors of New York and Florida. Yeah. It's just incredible how much they've flipped. I think DeSantis is overplaying his hand, though. That's my feeling. Talking about Florida, everything.

He's overstating it much too early. Much too early. Yeah, I think you're a little biased there. No, I'm not. I think he is. I think he's over bragging himself, trying to knock out Nikki H I think he is. I think he's over-bragging himself, trying to knock out Nikki Haley, etc. I think he's got a problem if he does that.

That's the problem with some people. They overstate their qualities much too early. Anyway, Scott, I gotta go. Another jam-packed weekend I have, and I'm going to be down there, of course. I'll be down. I'm really excited to come down there. What will you do, actually, without the Swishers this weekend?

Are you going to be okay? I'm going to Tulum this weekend with a bunch of my old buddies. God. Yeah, right? Can I come? Can I bring the Swishers? How about Jeff? Oh, 100% no.

100% no. There's so many Swishers. You haven't even met David. Hold on. Lucky's coming with us. And a strange 50-year-old who claims she's dating a young man with good hair at NYU. 40. That literally made my day. That made my day.

I'm so glad. I am so encouraging that relationship. We're bringing on Luis Wisha. We're bringing him on. He's a very funny, he's a wonderful boy. I love that guy. Do you know what he asked me this week? He wants to get a tattoo.

Can I date your friends? No. Sorry, go ahead. Listen, he has a tattoo of San Francisco. I have tattoos. He wanted to get one since he was a kid. And he has one when he turned 18. I said it was okay.

He said, I want to get another tattoo. And he came up with this new tattoo parlor. And I said, oh, that's cool. And he goes, will you come with me? And I said, sure. Like, okay. But then he's like, no, I want you to get a tattoo with me at the same time. Interesting.

I've told my kids I'll buy them a car if they have just three rules. Oh, okay. No motorcycles, no military. I think military service is a wonderful thing. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Yeah. And no tattoos. Oh, well, we're the complete opposite.

No motorcycles we agree on. Nonetheless, Louie and I are going to go get tattoos this summer. Yeah, great. I love that kid. That sounds like the worst reality TV show ever invented. You just hate them. My kids just love hanging with their mama. They do love hanging with mama.

Anyway. They do love hanging. Yeah, anyway. And then we'll take Clara for a tattoo, obviously, at some point. No, I'm kidding. Don't even say that. No, that is the most perfect physical being in the world. And by the way, stop her from growing up.

Literally just keep that where it is. She's so funny. She's so funny. Every morning she wakes up and every day is a new adventure. That's really pretty much Claire's life. Anyway, I've got to go. Don't forget, if you have a story in the news, you want to hear our opinion or submit your questions to nymag.com slash pivot.

And just be clear, Scott is not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Indretot 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 like the show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech in business. Are you over 60 and looking to date someone who can cook? And is it NYU? Hello. Hello.

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