Pivot - Trump lies about Apple, HBOMax fumbles its brand, Juul gets sued

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

Kara and Scott talk about how Apple CEO Tim Cook, let Trump get away with lying about being responsible for building a 2013 factory. They also talk about how a Facebook executive says the company wants the government to regulate political ads. Also, Scott thinks HBO Max is making a big mistake by diluting its brand and bundling non-prestige television. Friend of Pivot, Arielle Duhaime-Ross, the host of Reset comes on the show to ask Kara and Scott about "sharenting" and how they decide to share pictures of their kids. (You can hear the full episode on 11/26). Kara has strong feelings about Juul. The e-cigarette company is getting sued by California and New York for allegedly marketing their tobacco products to teens. Scott's win is Ambassador Marie Yavonavitch. While Kara's win is COTY buying Kylie Jenner's cosmetics company for $600-million. In predictions Scott says get used to hearing more about Roku in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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a lot of AI systems feel like they're designed for specific tasks performed by a select few. Well, Claude, by Anthropic, is AI for everyone. The latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, offers groundbreaking intelligence at an everyday price. Claude Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. And Cara, this is very exciting. Cara has gone Hollywood. That's right. Cara made her TV appearance, and you guessed it. She was the Baby Yoda on The Mandalorian. No, no, no, no. It's my third appearance on the TV show Silicon Valley. And again, once again, I suspect I probably should win the Emmy for it. But I was again on stage for Silicon Valley, the TV show. Do we have a clip?

I think we do. Go ahead. I'm now using Katoch as a means to communicate friendship. Hey, is that Kara Swisher? What are you guys doing in there? We are uplifting each other while we plan our annual Women in Tech Empowerment Panel. Kara's moderating. Oh, my God.

Is that Susan? Susan Wojcicki from YouTube. Don't point. It's unseemly. That is, you know what? So I got to be honest. I have most of the time, most of the time you tell me about the stuff you do, I have serious Jomo. Do you know what Jomo is?

No. Oh, God. Joy of missing out. Most of the shit you do, I think, oh, my God, I feel so much better about my life that I don't have to do that shit. This was serious FOMO, though. This was very cool. They gave you a—I mean, you were actually in the show. You had lines.

There's another scene later where I'm actually interviewing her about her company. It was all about sex-positive feminism. It was really funny. Sex-positive feminism? What the fuck is that? Sex-positive feminism? It's an app for women. Is there anything of sex-negativism?

What is that? No, no, but it was funny. You'll see. It's very funny. It's adorable. It was nice. It's well done. It was nice.

And what? I am on another episode. I'm sorry to tell you. I'm not going to tell you about that. You're on another episode. I'm sorry to tell you. I'm not going to tell you about that. You're on another episode? So in terms of expectations around those of us who've never been on an HBO show, did it meet, not meet, exceed your expectations? It was fantastic. I love Alex Berg and Mike Judge, and I like the whole team there.

And also, the food is great, let me just say. And I had a trailer. That's the key. I had a really nice trailer. Eric Anderson went with me. Did he? And we hung in the trailer with all the other celebrities. It was fun. And who's the nicest?

Give me the most. I want some, like, page six gossip here. Who is the least like their character and the most like their character based on your limited impressions? Well, Susan Cryer, who plays Lori Bream, is not like that. She's just delightful and witty and funny. And she does a perfect job channeling either it's Marissa Mayer mixed with Mark Zuckerberg, mixed with all of them. And I think she's really – they're all great. I've interviewed – I've actually – every year that they've had a premiere, I've done an interview with the cast, a lot of the cast.

And so I think they're all wonderful. The particular one is the guy – I can't – I'm blanking on his name. He plays the assistant, Jared. Yeah. He's amazing. He's. Yeah. He's amazing. He's very good. He's amazing as a person, and in person, he's so funny. But they're all great.

He was in Veep. Camille's lovely. Yeah, they're the best-written show on TV. He was in Veep. He played, I forget, he played the boyfriend of Eastman and a bunch of stuff. In any case, they're all great. I think they're all great. I don't think there's anyone on it I don't think that I've met that hasn't been great.

They're every one of them. Listen, this episode was actually written by Daisy Gardner. It was actually an all-female directing cast. Everything else was great there. Who told Eric America that she listened to Rico Dico to inspire her scripts. So shout out to you, Daisy. Thanks for writing this hilarious episode. Maybe you'll get on a show someday.

You want to be on The Mandalorian, but like. Don't even say that. Don't even say that. We might get you on a mandolin. There you go again. Promise me stuff. You're literally like a 60-year-old man trying to seduce some 30-year-old impressionable person with all these false promises. I just don't buy it.

I just don't buy it. Yes. Anyway, let's get down to business. There's so much news happening. There's a lot going on here, Cara. So much news. Now, all my colleagues at Recode were at Code Media in L.A. this week. A ton of information from Tig Notaro to John Stanky of AT&T took the stage.

And there was one particular interview with Carolyn Everson. She's the vice president of global marketing solutions, whatever that is, at Facebook. And she told them that the government should regulate ads and not companies. And she said that Facebook was probably not going to do anything from their stance and then walked it back 12 minutes later in another interview. But let's play this tape. And we really believe that Washington, D.C. needs to put regulation. As a citizen, and I'm sure you want this too, probably everybody in this audience, we'd like to know that the ads we see from our political candidates are truthful. That's really important for democracy. You want the government orbiting what's truthful and not

not. We think there should be regulation. We do not think Facebook should be choosing what is true or not. All right. So in the interim of that, Google, following in Twitter's steps, decided to put in some some more less targeting, no targeting, and will take out really egregiously false ads, not sort of blovigating ads, but anyway. So, Google's now moving in what you call, what do you call it, Mr. Galloway, Professor Galloway? I don't know. I'm drawing a blank. What have I said? White hat. Oh, they're starching their hat white. Yeah. But it's kind of like you said, they've starched it kind of an off-white here. It's not the full starch. It's not Twitter. It's not a ban. That's right. But still,

you know, the best thing that happened to Google was Facebook providing cloud cover, because all of a sudden they're no longer the bad kid. I mean, it's literally Facebook's kind of, you know, most wanted number one kind of, in that statement, you know, when she said, well, I'm sure people here would like to see truthful ads, but want the government to regulate it. And I would bet the majority of the people in the office said, well, no, actually media companies, probably if they can screen out blatantly false content, we'd probably be down with that too. So they're in, they're in sort of a corner because what they're saying is inconsistent and makes no sense. And they're kind of isolated and

alone and basically trying to—it's difficult to put lipstick on this pig because it just makes no sense what their stated policy. And you've predicted that they're not going to ban them, but they're going to alter it, or they're going to— Alter it, which is what I thought Google was going to do, which is what they do, because now I'm the prediction queen here. But what's interesting is that— You're just the queen. You are just the queen. What's interesting about Google is, look, they've got YouTube, which is more like a TV business, right? It's more akin to a TV business than anything else. And then they've got search,

which you've got to search on things to get them. So they're not in the micro-targeting business the way Facebook is. That said, Google compared to Twitter is a big player here. And the question is how much pressure it's going to put on Facebook to do something else besides nothing. And what's interesting is that then the Trump people tweeted lobbying Facebook against changing the way it's targeting because the Trump campaign loves it. And so Brad Parcell is probably sweating in his Levi's about this situation. But it's going to be really problematic because they're being buffeted by the Trump campaign on one hand and by what Google and Twitter have done on the other. Yeah, it's – the weird thing, though, is that we are in sort of our – a little bit of our bubble and we read the media every day and we say, OK, there's a lot of pressure on Facebook. But it's difficult to bring pressure to bear on a monopoly because there's very little downside. And if you look

at some of the things that Facebook's done and then what's happened to them, if you look at their stock price, if you look at the fact that the CEO and the CO still have their job, I mean, they're really, at the end of the day, we think there's pressure on them, but none of this pressure has been resulted in anything tangibly bad happening to the company. There's been some fines that are like parking tickets. What's that? I think they're going to change. I think they're going to do something different.

I think they're keeping their options open. What Facebook has to do is there's got to be 26 disasters, and then they move. And I think that's really what it is. But I don't think they like being in this position. what it is. But I don't think they like being in this position. That said, Mark was at dinner with Trump, as there just was revealed, because they don't keep logs in the White House anymore, that Mark had dinner with Peter Thiel and Trump when he was here that time he gave his idiotic free speech speech. And so he's, you know, they're trying to play it both ways, you know, in that regard. Yeah, it's, in the tech executives, Tim Cook got a lot of grief, and I know that,

I don't know how you feel about Tim Cook's role in it, but these corporate leaders, but they're sort of in an impossible position, because if they in any way, what Tim Cook, in my opinion, has done that's been incredible is his ability to somehow thread the needle between Xi and Trump and not offend people and figure out a way to still remain, in my view, you know, a principled person who, you know, appears to want to do the right thing and does the right thing and still maintain anything resembling a productive working relationship with the president. And when you're the most valuable company in the world and you're a U.S.-based

company, you know, you want to maintain a good relationship with the administration. I thought the media was kind of unfairly harsh on Tim Cook. You feel like he should have behaved differently. No, not this one. Go ahead. Look, this is what I tweeted. Trump tweeted out, today I opened a major Apple manufacturing plant in Texas

that will bring high-paying jobs back to America. Today Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn't care about American workers. This is a major lie. There's no opening of a major Apple manufacturing plant in Texas. This is what's happening. They toured a plant that's been in operation making Macs since 2013. They toured that plant.

It's not even an Apple company, by the way. It's a company called Flex. It used to be called Flextronics. So they didn't open anything. Apple is working on expanding its campus in Austin to a larger campus yes they are it will have no manufacturing and it's

obviously there's going to be more jobs there but it's not even close to this tweet and then the Trump campaign turned it into a campaign ad with a lie and Tim said nothing this is just look when he gets called Tim Apple I get it and this is what I wrote this is completely false I get that Tim Cook did not correct the Tim Apple thing. Pointing out someone being addled is awkward, but this is different. It's a plant run by a company called

Flex. It's been manufacturing since 2013. If Apple will not say so, I will. This is a lie. And I don't know what deal he's getting in response, but it's pretty much of a shocker to a lot of people to do this. I get the idea of having dinner with him. I get, like, having to be nice to him. But to be part and parcel to a lie that becomes a lying campaign ad that I guess you then run on Facebook is gross. It's just gross. Well, you know what he wants. What he wants is exemption from tariffs that are going to take his stock price tangibly down.

But, look, the good news is that Carolyn Everson believes that Apple shouldn't be responsible for checking its own lies. It should be the government regulating them. That was a joke, Kara. That was good humor. Anyways. In any case, it's a mess. I just think there's a point where you kiss up to people, and then there's a point where you don't kiss up to people. I think people who use Apple, I was surprised at this level of lying. And, you know, silence is annoying enough, but allowing this kind of lie to go on under the corporate name is just, I'm surprised. I have to say. But if they ran the ad on Facebook, then it's the government, it's Trump that should be regulating the lies of his own making.

I know. It's a mess. It's a mess. But the whole point is that we've gotten used to these lies, like lies are okay. And arguing. And I've got all these imbeciles on Twitter going, they're investing a billion dollars. Trump is right. I'm like, no, he's not.

And by the way, if you want to give credit, give it to Rick Perry or whoever was governor of Texas at the time and Obama because it was 2013. It's just, and by the way, politicians don't matter in these decisions these companies make. If they need to manufacture in China, they will. If they need to do it here for some political reason, they'll do it. It has nothing to do with these politicians. Most of this stuff has nothing to do with politicians. I agree, except for AOC and state senator Gianaris that saved New York taxpayers $3 billion by telling the wealthiest man in the world to put his hand back in his pocket.

I think actually they did have an impact. And also, you talk a little bit about Code Media. Code Media was a lot there. A lot happened. Then John Stanky, the CEO of Warner Media, he says HBO Max wants to be the next cable bundle, not the next Netflix. Let's listen to his tape. last couple of weeks about the frustration and the fragmentation of the bundle and what's going to happen. We're basically unbundling to rebundle. At some point, there will be platforms that re-aggregate and re-bundle. And we'd like the platform ultimately to be a place where re-aggregation occurs. And that doesn't just mean our content. Scott, your Rundle idea is catching on with John Stanky, who has a very deep voice, by the way, CEO of WarnerMedia. The Rundle, Scott, what do you think?

There's too many things out there? What do you think? Well, I actually think this will be the brand disaster move of 2020. And I think what Mr. Stanky— All right, explain yourself. Well, okay, so HBO has 23 percent of their shows are rated higher than 7.5 on IMDb versus just 6% for Amazon Prime or 10% for Netflix. If you look at the amount of Emmys that HBO has won, it won 34 last year, which is more than Netflix and Amazon almost combined. And what you have here is an incredible

culture that has created the equivalent of a luxury brand and I mean it's some more data here so if you were to take the monthly fee of these bundles and then divided by The the billions of dollars are spending on original content basically What HBO has been able to do is nothing short of remarkable and that is that for? But what HBO has been able to do is nothing short of remarkable, and that is that for basically for $7.50, HBO gives you a billion dollars worth of original content. And despite spending more, charging you more, in other words, it's the worst value versus Apple TV, you only have to spend 80 cents a month as a consumer to get a billion dollars in original content. With Netflix, you have to spend 90 cents, Prime Video $1.30. HBO charges you $7.50.

Despite this, HBO continues to produce the best content. So HBO is the equivalent of a Birkin bag. And what Stanky's deciding to do by trying to go more mass and layer in all this kind of mediocre content from Warner is he said, I know we're Birkin. We're a luxury brand. We have the best, highest margin company or creative machine in the world. We have artisans in the form of content creators, and we're going to turn it into fucking Coach and then Walmart.

This is literally— What other brand has done that? Can you recall a brand that's gone— That's a great... There's a bunch of brands that have done that, gone too cheap, right? Well, I mean, there's a lot. I mean, Cartier, when they started putting their names on Lincoln Town Cars, but then they got it back and made an incredible brand. It's much easier to go downhill, but then there's no going back. And the bottom line is they can't compete with the deep pockets of Netflix or Apple TV. So this is literally John Stanky taking a Birkin bag down to a Coach bag down to a Brooklyn Messenger bag.

It's just the worst strategy in the world. They can't compete with the deep pockets of Netflix and Apple TV+. They only have about 200 original shows or 200 shows on their platform versus 2,000 on Netflix and Amazon. So they can't go toe-to-toe with these guys. They had to stay. They shouldn't. And they shouldn't. And Disney, too. 100%. And don't you, when you hear a show that's from HBO, don't you naturally assume in the back of your mind it's probably going to be better and you're more willing to trial it? Except now, it was interesting. I was on an airplane yesterday. And Fleabag is from what, Amazon? I forget. I don't even know. Fleabag's from Amazon. Maisel is from Amazon, which I watch. I'm trying to think of the things

I watch. Homeland is from Showtime. I don't think of HBO as the only place for great stuff, although there's great stuff on it, right? Let me just be clear. There's tons of great stuff on there. But others have started to make great stuff, like HBO-worthy stuff. So I don't know if they have the market on that anymore. But they don't have any choice. And with Richard Plepler gone. They don't have any choice. They have to have fewer programs but better programs, and they have to maintain.

The only asset they have, they can't go toe-to-toe in terms of capital and armaments and spending against these deeper-pocketed players. The only strategy they have is to maintain. 100% succession. Think about it. Oh, my God. Sopranos, Sopranos, six feet under, the best show that nobody ever watched, The Wire, Hank on Larry Sanders. This company has the secret sauce

of being able to produce amazing content on a fraction of the budget. They're a luxury brand and they've decided, oh no, we're not gonna be a luxury brand. We're gonna be Walmart and Target. And by the way, that market is covered like crazy with cheap tackles. So the worst brand decision of 2020 was the decision for AT&T to basically trash their positioning as a luxury brand in the content arena and move into the mass market. It is not going to work.

It's going to result in one of the largest corporate write-downs. That's a good prediction. I think you're 100% right on that. And I think other people are moving into the luxury space and they're taking their eye off the ball. But, you know, AT&T is a mass brand and they don't know how to own something that's fancy. People want to see Kara Swisher on Silicon Valley. They don't want to see the dog on a bunch of like Big Bang Theory on HBO. They want the high-end stuff.

Anyways, I'm droning on. Okay, Scott, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back after this with Friends of Pivot. We've got listener mail. We've got predictions. We've got wins and losses. We've got a lot to go. We'll be right back after this with friends of Pivot. We got listener mail. We got predictions. We got wins and losses. We got a lot to go. We'll be back in a minute. 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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we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize?

What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. 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 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 to Pivot. All right, Scott, we're going to hear from a friend. We have friend of Pivot. That's a new thing. Fop.

Fop. Fop. Okay, Fop. She's Ariel Duhame-Ross, the host of Fox's podcast Reset, where she covers stories for people who want to hear what's behind new tech developments and policies. So go to tape. This week on Reset, we're doing an episode on sharenting, which is basically what happens when parents share information about their kids online.

So while I was working on this episode, one of the things that I learned was that even when parents announce the birth of their child online, they tend to give the specific date. And that can actually be a problem because that makes it more likely that your kid's identity will be stolen. I know both of you like to talk about your kids on the show and on social media. And Cara, you just had a baby. Congrats on that, by the way. So I'm curious, especially going into the holiday season and, you know, when parents are posting lots of pictures of their kids online, how do you decide what to share on the Internet about your children? Thanks, guys. It's a really thoughtful question.

You go first. Am I in trouble? I got in trouble this week with my 14-year-old because I sharented. I'm a sharent. There's no way around it. I'm terrible. I have a terrible. And do they get upset they don't like it?

Well, the older one doesn't care. Is he about to get upset with what you're about to say? Well, no. Yeah, the older one doesn't care. It doesn't seem to care. It seems fine when he doesn't care. But the other one, he was furious at me because I shared a picture of him holding his new sister. He didn't – he doesn't mind.

It was fascinating. He doesn't mind me necessarily sharing. But now I have to check with him if the pictures are good, which is – it's totally fair. And secondly, he wanted me to tag him, but not always. And so I realize I have taken – I am a share-in, and I'm doing the same thing. I don't know – I don't – it's a good debate to have, and it's a really important topic because I just – I don't have anything to stand on. What do you think, Scott? I'm just a bad shirt.

You know what? I have what I'll call no, like, moral clarity around this issue. And that is initially I turned my Instagram account private and I don't accept new users because I have pictures of my kids. And it feels – it just feels private. And it feels like that should be one area of your life that is just that, is private. And you keep it sort of precious and special and unique. But I also write a lot about my children in my blog post, No Mercy, No Malice, but I try to refer to them in the generic of my oldest and my youngest. I did publish a picture

of my youngest, and then afterwards I thought, I probably shouldn't be publishing pictures of them until their age of consent. And I talk about them on this podcast a lot, but sometimes I think, is that performative? Am I trying to be more likable by showing these incredibly, you know, we all think our kids are special and wonderful and they are. And I wonder, am I doing that to make a point or because I want to be more likable? So my kind of move right now is I've decided I'm going to be performative and pimp my dogs. I'm going to not try and talk less about my kids and talk more about the dogs. Did those dogs give consent?

I'm not sure. Oh, my God. Such joy. Zoe the Vizsla, and now we have the Puerto Rican rescue hound gangster. And he's doing very well. He's doing very well. You and George Conway with your dogs. What's the hell?

That's right. It's a really interesting topic. You should listen to this show. But I think it's something you have to think about a lot. Again, my son Louie, I've talked about their names, has been on the podcast, and he's very voluble and likes to do it. And the other one, I'm not going to say his name because he doesn't want me to. Or maybe he does.

I don't know. Things change every day. But it's a really – it's a big issue, and people should listen to this topic because it's a big issue. Between being called a Sharon screen ager, that's the other name my kid has for me, and an okay boomer. It's been a great time at home. Anyway, let's take a listener question now about another topic sort of related to kids. It's a topic that I think about a lot. Juul gets sued. Go ahead. This week's pivot listener mail comes from Owen Libby. He's from Manhattan, New York. He's wondering, is Altria's investment in Juul the worst corporate investment of all time? A little background. California and New York formally sued Juul earlier this week for

allegedly targeting teens toward flavored nicotine with their marketing. So he's wondering, because you both have kids, whether you have any vaping testimony yourself, whether you have any thoughts on this area in general. Thanks, Owen. Oh, I have thoughts. What are your thoughts, Kara? I think they're just the worst. The worst. The worst. If you have teens, I don't think your kids are a little younger. It's just completely targeted toward them. It's as bad as old cigarette marketing. I own so many jewels.

Like I've taken them from my oldest kid, and I just think it's awful. I think the way they're doing this, I think it's dangerous. I think some of these, you know, I think probably the dangers are probably slightly overhyped by the media. But nonetheless, it's just like smoking as far as I'm concerned. And I think the marketing is what really drives me crazy. The flavor, it's so aimed at young people. And I do think it's the worst investment from Altria. And I think those people walked out with a whole bunch of, they're sort of like the WeWork people just walked out after perpetrating what is essentially a really dangerous product. Thank you.

Yeah. So I have, again, no moral clarity here. Full disclosure, I'm an investor in the space. Tobacco had a strangle-like hold on my household, took my mother's life. And I think that the fast—and I'm not making in any way a health claim here. This is just a pure thesis or opinion of my view. But if we were to give an e-cigarette to every smoker over the age of 25 and reduce the number of tobacco smokers 10% a year, I think we would save more lives, or we could save 5 to 7 million lives. And at the same time, the outrage over the youth problem, I think it's justified. I think your concerns are justified. The question around whether or not it was the biggest kind of corporate blunder from just a

purely financial standpoint it's not even close the altree invested 13 billion dollars for a one-third stake valuing the company at about 40 billion it rose to 50 billion let's say that's been cut in half or even say they've lost six to ten billion dollars time warner bought aol for about 163 billion and then you know fast forward 15 years later, AOL and Yahoo got sold for $5 billion. Google bought Motorola for, I think, $12 or $13 billion and then sold it, I think, for $2 or $3 billion to Lenovo. Daimler bought Chrysler for $38 billion and then ended up selling it back to private equity after a failed integration for $7 to $10. So this doesn't even make the top 10. There have been a lot more disastrous acquisitions that have been written down by much more than this.

Okay, that's true. Fair point. But it's still not a good one. And secondly, let me just say, look, look, the Center for Disease Control has reported over 2,000 lung injury cases and 43 deaths linked to vaping. More than 120 of those people were kids or minors. Altria is a tobacco company. And so they are just trying to keep their nicotine addicts with them. And I just, as a parent, I just, when I see this marketing, it's like mass and the coolness factor and everything else. It's just, you know, they could, if older people want to ruin their lives by smoking and that's what you do, just so you know. You're sucking on a death stick.

You don't point them at kids who are at such a point in their lives where they think they're cool doing them, and when celebrities—it's like the old cigarette days, and I'm sorry even if they're even slightly healthier. It's just—I just think they acted incredibly badly just on every aspect of them and then tried to put themselves off. Another company that pretended they were a tech company. They're not a tech company. They're a smoking company. So, sorry.

Agreed. Thank you. Anyway, we'll move on from that on that note. We need to take one more quick break and we'll be back with wins and fails and predictions. wins and fails and predictions. 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, 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. Okay, we're back. Let's talk about wins and fails. Come on, Scott, what are your wins and fails this week?

So my win is, who is my win? My win is Ambassador Yovanovitch. Ah, nice. And I just thought this was, you know, this last week, what the media has been reporting on, that the impact of this was a series of drumbeats that have, in fact, continued to link the president with the criminality that is the president. But what I found especially encouraging or rewarding about Ambassador Yovanovitch's testimony is that I think it, I don't want to say restores a lot of faith, but I've always felt that we give people in uniform or people in the government who are in what I'd call kind of macho jobs the credit they deserve, but we have a tendency to mock or be somewhat cynical about the people in government who don't carry an M-16 or aren't working as spies, right? And the

reality is we have an incredible army of people who decide to spend their life working for something bigger than themselves to advance our interests overseas and domestically. And Ambassador Yovanovitch, I thought, was on full display in terms of how impressive many of these people are and how fortunate we have. So this is the daughter of parents who fled Nazi Germany, and then the Russians figured out a way to get to Princeton. Then she studied at the Pushkin Institute. Then she received an MS from the National Defense University's National War College. She rose to become the ambassador of Kyrgyzstan and then Armenia. And then while in Armenia, she was given an award.

She's given an award. She went to huge lengths and was hugely successful convincing the Armenian government to release protesters from prison. She was given the Secretary's Diplomacy and Human Rights Award, a department award honoring ambassadors who demonstrate extraordinary commitment to defending human rights. She's been given all sorts of awards. I mean, this is just an incredibly impressive person who had so many options, who didn't go to work for Goldman, didn't go to work for MySpace or a tech company, and decided to serve her country. And then to have, you know, soon-to-be cellmate to Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani, show up and basically, you know, disparage her. It just really, it not only highlighted how corrupt this administration is, but I thought in a very positive way. Incredible people.

It demonstrated just how incredibly impressive this army of people overseas are. Yeah, they were fantastic. So she's – anyways, Ambassador Yovanovitch is my winner. My friend did a – was at the jazz club in D.C. called the Blues Alley. And she did a tape of people giving her a standing ovation. She's a jazz fan. And she was there, and when she walked in, everyone gave her a standing ovation. I think people really want to feel proud of their country, and the attacks on her are reprehensible by the Trump administration.

They're reprehensible. And they're backfiring. They're just backfiring. You listen to these people, and the truth has a nice ring to it, and it's just ringing so loud. Everything they say sounds so true. And by the way, Ambassador Sondland clearly, his lawyer, you know what happened there. His lawyer clearly sat him down and said, I just have one question for you. Do you want to go to jail?

And if the answer is no, get your shit straight and tell the truth. Because everybody that's gotten up there thinking that in some perverted source of patriotism and loyalty to the president, and lies, misleads. It's like Lady Justice kind of, we thought she might have left the building. She was just grabbing coffee, and she is back with a vengeance, and it is working. These people, when they now stand in front of Congress, are like, okay, best I tell the truth because people are going to prison. And it's good to see. It's good to see that our system is working and people, when they get in front of these committees, are now saying, okay, the best advice you can get is to tell the truth. And he revised his testimony, I think, twice. But it feels like the system –

We'll see. It's just like – it feels like we're in an ongoing episode of Star Wars. Like, oh, God, the Empire. Did you say that like it's a bad thing? No, because the last episode, there's like seven people from the resistance left. It's like, ah, Jesus. Like, God, these people, they keep on coming. Like, honestly, I just, just from like, even just doing this tweet about Apple, you're

like, oh, you're a, you wanted Hillary to post. I'm like, no, I don't want the president to lie and use Apple as an ad. Like, thank you. Just like, I'm sorry you have so little, like you have so few abilities not to think lying is OK. I just – I agree with you. I think it was very heartening to listen to that and to listen to all these people. And, you know, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman I thought was great. Weirdly, he looks – my dad was also in the military and he looks a little like my dad.

And my dad died when I was young. And so I was like so proud of like the idea of – like he wasn't having any of it. You know what I mean? Like he's an immigrant. He came from the former Soviet Union. Just – I thought he was great too. I know we revere military more than other things, but I thought he was exactly what was right about the military. Who's your win?

My win. I'm going to go to someone who's not like Ms. Ambassador, the ambassador. Kylie Jenner's cosmetics company being bought by Cody for $600 million. Oh, my gosh. They also own makeup brands, CoverGirl, Max Factor. I think, you know, this was really interesting. The question is what's going to happen to it, but Cody's shares rose 2.6% this week. shares rose 2.6% this week. These independent beauty brands, like not just from Kylie Jenner,

but from Rihanna with Fenty, which apparently is very good because people really, makeup people always tell me it's really fantastic. I think it's really interesting. And I do think it shows that, look, this is real money. This is real money. The Kardashians, as much as people make fun of them, Kylie Jenner's obviously daughter, Kris Jenner, part of the Kardashian empire. I think it's really interesting that these brands are just being created like this, and I thought that was fascinating. I'm curious what you think. You can bash the Kardashians all you want if you feel like, but I thought it put some lipstick on this whatever.

No, I think I agree with you. I think the Kardashian women or daughters are impressive people, and I think it's easy to be cynical about them, but they've built great businesses. And it's doing $200 million in revenues. It was actually purchased 51 a proprietary skincare line or even a great brand, but her ability to sell $200 million of cosmetics through primarily the Ulta channel using her 160 million followers on Instagram or Twitter. So this notion, what are these independent – you have a few trends. One in the beauty space, which is a wonderful space that is high margin, great for e-commerce, and it's one of the few spaces that hasn't been disrupted by technology or Amazon because brand's important and there's a certain kind of, similar to HBO, there's a culture of creativity at places like Estee Lauder and L'Oreal that continues. Those are the big ones.

Yeah. P&G, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder are the big ones. And then you have Clarins. And then P&G looks like the smart company because they sold all their cosmetics line to Cody. And quite frankly, it looks like Cody overpaid for it. Cody's stock was down dramatically. It's come back. But Cody's largely kind of a fragrance and a licensing company of celebrity-driven fragrances. But anyways, what this shows is the power of these long-tail brands has incredible power across beauty, hair, hair cosmetics, and skin. And when you have a $200 million company largely built on the back of social media and then distribution through Ulta, valuation of $1.2 billion.

I mean, it's just kind of impressive all around and plays on a lot of trends. But I think the big winner here is it shows just how important Instagram is in terms of building a high-margin aspirational product. Conde Nast had been reinvented or reimagined for a digital age. Yes. Remember how powerful the Conde Nast media company was with Vogue? It would look something like Instagram. So Instagram, my thesis is that in 24 months, and this is another indication, Instagram will be worth more than the core platform of Facebook.

I agree. That's like a prediction. We'll get to that in a minute. But I agree. I agree. I think this is a big win, and I think people like to make – I got a lot of pushback when I said this was fascinating because they love to just keep talking about Kim Kardashian's sex tape years to come. But look, these people have created a lot of stuff, whether you think the messages about girls are wrong or not. They've done a lot of things that are really interesting.

You know, and a lot of these celebrities are using these social media platforms for really interesting stuff. And I think this is one of them in terms of Kylie Jenner. And, you know, someone like The Rock, who I have just been tweeting with back and forth with. I'm trying to get it. I saw that. The Rock's all over you.

The Rock is all over. I love The Rock. What did he call you? He's like, he called you his hero? He calls himself Rock Bundle from you. Did you see that? A rundle. I saw that. The Rock's all over you. The Rock is all over. I love The Rock. What did he call you? He's like, he called you his hero? He calls himself Rock Bundle from you. Did you see that? A rundle, a rock bundle, yeah. I said I'd buy a rock bundle last week.

By the way, Dwayne Rock, I'd love someone to compare Dwayne The Rock Johnson to George Clooney. First off, The Rock graduated from college. The Rock has been in all these incredible movies. So basically we're comparing him to George Clooney about how much more impressive he is than Clooney. The Rock is very impressive. I love The Rock. If I could get The Rock on a podcast or a code, literally, it would be a dream. Someone was like, who's my, you know, by the way, years ago when I was talking to Facebook and who was a real up and comer on social media, they said two names, the Kardashians and The Rock. And that was, they said he is just

something else on social media. And so I think he's—I can't believe he responded to me. I literally screamed when I saw that. And I just watched Hobbs and Shaw, which I loved, of course. And they—I was really thrilled. And he was great about it. He wants to have a drink. You may come with me to that because I don't drink. Again, more hollow promises.

If I get drinks at The Rock, you are coming. And literally you cannot embarrass yourself with me and The Rock. Do you understand? Because I am deeply— This takes me to the ugly place of my dad constantly holding out that rabbit coat. He was going to get my mom that never came. I'm just saying. We never got the rabbit coat.

We got a two-bedroom apartment in Encino and mediocre child support. That's where you take me with these hollow promises. The Rock. The Rock. Listen, The Rock. Listen, Dwayne. I love you. You need to come to code or whatever.

I will do a bike as I do anywhere, anyplace, anytime. It will be so much fun. We will laugh and laugh and laugh and then we'll have tequila afterwards. Can you ask The Rock to put us both on a workout program and let's just see what happens? No. Let's not even try to bother. Okay, your fail. Very quickly.

We got to go because we got to get to your prediction. You like that? I like that. Oh, my fail, very quickly, we got to go because we got to get to your prediction. I like that. Oh, my fail is easy. My fail is just the brand strategy blunder, and it will result in what is the erosion. I've had companies that have been acquired, and what you realize is the culture is just so important. And one of the great cultures in all of corporate America and media is the culture at HBO. And you have just an incredibly poor judgment right now that is going to erode the culture that has produced some of the most,

for me, some of the most moving content in history. And it's not only the wrong thing to do just in terms of destroying art. It's the stupid thing to do. They can't be Walmart. So my fail is just poor decision-making at HBO going to HBO Max. No one wants Big Bang Theory to junk up The Wire, Six Feet Under, Girls. Richard Kleppler is probably just choking. Well, did you hear? Supposedly Apple is eyeing him. Yes, they are, 100%.

The deep pockets of Apple, the original content there. They're not eyeing him. He's going to do a deal with them. It makes sense. You think? I mean, that's going to be a formidable—we're talking—we definitely want to know that guy because that's our invite to the Emmys because that guy is going to be accepting a lot of— I know that guy really well. Well, of course you do.

Well, Plepler was the PR guy for time—for HBO for years before he became the head of it, and he was in my book. He was in my— I know Plepler, I love that Plepler guy. He's a fantastic, amazing person. Yeah, but him on top of a limitless capital

in the Apple brand, watch out. I love the Plepler. Watch out. He's very funny. He's a funny guy. You know Plepler, don't you?

I got an email from him asking if we could have lunch and similar to you, Apollo Promises, another rabbit coach. He likes to go, I forget which restaurant he goes to. You got to go to lunch.

I'm going to hook you up with a Plepler. I will do that. Here we go again. More Promises. Jesus, you can't help yourself. I'm just telling you, Plepler is great. You and Plepler would get along well. He loves to meet interesting people

and you're an interesting, he has dinner parties. And also me. And also me. Yeah. No, but he likes to have interesting people dinner parties in New York. You know, those things

where you're sort of on display like a zebra. You'd be perfect. You'd be perfect for that. Huh. I guess. You're like a zebra. Thanks for that. Okay.

All right. We're going to get to predictions. My fail, obviously, is Tim Cook and Trump this week. And I don't blame Trump because he lies like he breathes. But Tim Cook should know better. Thank you. Okay. Your prediction and then we got to go.

My prediction. So a name you're going to hear more about in 2020, and it's about to become a player in the ecosystem between the intersection of tech and the streaming wars, which I'm just fascinated right now, is Roku. Oh. And Roku now I believe has a 38% share of devices for streaming ahead of Amazon, whose Fire Stick, I think, has about a 30% share. And when you look at one of the keys, one of the

missing links to Netflix and to Disney Plus is they don't control their distribution. So their ability to go toe-to-toe with Amazon and Apple streaming offerings that control their own distribution will be their ability to either acquire distribution or build it or the other way, and Roku offers that, or the other way, because Roku's stock has skyrocketed. And now as sports, I think about a $15 or $16 billion market cap, you could see a Roku. You could see a man bites dog, and you could see Roku go out and start to acquire content. Maybe even a CBS that I think sports about a $13 billion market cap right now. But a bigger name that we're not talking a lot about now in 2020 and a new player in the space, if you will, is Roku.

Roku. Roku. Okay, that's interesting. You're pulling them out of nowhere. God, not Netflix or anything like that? Well, they either get acquired. They could get acquired by Netflix or potentially Disney that need distribution, or they, if their stock keeps going up, will use their currency to go acquire a content company. But Roku is going to be in the news either as a seminal acquirer or acquisition

in 2020. I think that's really smart. I never even thought about Roku, but you're right. Well, I heard Richard's listening, so I'm trying to impress him.

I like that. I like that a lot. I like that concept a lot. It's interesting, Netflix, I still think, despite the fact that Disney's done a great job

with this thing and HBO Max is coming, bah, is coming, I still think Netflix got a lot of kick left in it in terms of its programming. I watched, if you can believe it, Let It Snow, which is their

Christmas movie. It's trying to sort of be book smart, but not quite as smart. And I thought, I can see why they're doing really well. It was really well done, even though it was ridiculous and empty for a Roncom, but it was sort of a mix between book smart and love, actually. So,

I still think they're really canny as programmers. And so, it'll take a lot for others to keep up with how good they are. Well, you know who winners are just based on that is content creators, as evidenced by just an anecdotal or a small data point. Netflix is expanding their creative community and their producers in their content hub in Madrid, Spain, from 13,000 people to 25,000 people. So think about Netflix is going to have 25,000 people in Madrid producing European content.

And it gives you a sense of, really, it's a wonderful time for kids coming out of college right now. If they can be any part of the ecosystem that manages to figure out a way to produce creative, differentiated content, that is a really good wrap right now. The cost of producing a show in the last 12 months, according to Netflix, has gone up 30 to 40 percent, which indicates that

everyone from the gaffers to the caterers to the people moving your trailer around are making a lot more money. So this is a growth part of the economy. Get to content. Get to content creation. You're right. And speaking of content, I'm going to have a prediction. Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker is going to be a huge hit. And Cats is not, even though it's weird looking. Well, you're really going out on a limb there. I know.

Listen to me. You and I are going to go see both in a double feature. There we go again. There we go again. Try on this rabbit coat. It's coming. Yes, it's coming. You and I are going to go see Cats and sing along

to it. You're literally taking me back to Sears. My dad pulls out his diner's club card. We're going to go see Cats together. We're going to hold hands. Yeah, that's what you call Jomo. Joy of missing out. Joy of

missing out. Taylor Swift is in Cats. Oh my God, we didn't even talk about Taylor Swift kicking Scott Borchetta or whatever. And Scooter Braun in the place where it hurts. Taylor Swift. Nice. Taylor. What do you got going on this week, Kara? This week?

What's the big cat up to? I have a lot of interviews. I've got a lot of interviews. I'm going up to Boston for Thanksgiving. What are you doing for Thanksgiving? My sister and her family, who I will not be posting on social media or Instagram, will be coming down. My dad's third wife, my wonderful stepmother, was the first person to ever spoil me. She's Linda, first person. She,

like, first person to spoil me, buy me things. She used to send me cookies. And you always love for the rest of your life the first person who spoiled you. I didn't have grandparents, but I had my dad's third wife. Thought she couldn't have children. He's on number four, but we think this one's going to stick there. That is a heartwarming family Thanksgiving. Isn't that nice? My dad's third wife. She's coming. She's wonderful. What are you thankful for? We got to go. What are you thankful for? I'm thankful we live in a country that attracts some of the best and brightest that continue to want to serve for us silently and quietly and competently. I'm thankful for ambassadors, the Secret Service, the DMV, and the University of California. I'm thankful for all the wonderful people who've made this incredible experiment as robust as it is. Oh, Scott, that's so good. And your father's third wife.

And my dad's third wife. Listen to me. I'm thankful for you, Scott Galloway. What are you thankful for? I'm thankful for you because you make me look good. Go on. Go on. You make me look good. Someone the other day goes, you know, Scott's really offensive. And I'm like, uh-huh. Well, no shit. And they go, well know, Scott's really offensive. And I'm like, uh-huh. Well, no shit. And they go, well, do you think that's okay? I'm like, I love it. It's fantastic.

It's my favorite part because I can kick him in the teeth. There you go. And then he says something really smart. That's how it works. And then he says something else. But I am thankful for you, and I'd be more thankful if the next time we meet you were dressed in drag. That's what I would be thankful for. That's nice.

I'm in. All right. We're going to go see Cats, and you're going to dress like a cat. Rebecca Newman. I'm dressing as Rebecca. All right. Anyway, Scott, we've got to go now. We'll be back next week.

We do have to go. With more things. Before we go, I want to big thank you, actually, to all the amazing listener questions and feedback and Twitter in our inbox. Thank you all, and thank you for the people who listened to Pivot. We love our fans. We have great fans. We do.

We've gotten great notes from Mexico, from everywhere around the world who want us to come there, and we are going to go everywhere as long as you buy our drinks. That's how it works for us. Hottest city in the world, Mexico City. Hottest city in the world right now. We're going to figure it out. We're going for Formula One. Erica is on it.

She's going to figure it out. They're all going to, and Rebecca, they're going to figure it out for us. Anyway, please keep your questions, requests, suggestions coming into our inbox. Keep telling Scott he's the best on Twitter. We can be reached at pivot at voxmedia.com. Also, tweet at us using hashtag pivot podcast. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Gautam Shrikashan engineered this episode. Eric Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Rebecca Castro and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

And if you liked our 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 and business. Thank you. has helped countless startups and established companies alike reach their growth targets, make progress on their missions, and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a suite of specialized features and tools to fast-track growth, like Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to handle subscription-based charges, invoicing, and all recurring revenue management needs. You can learn how Stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at Stripe.com. That's Stripe.com to learn more. Stripe. Make progress.

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