Pivot - Truth Social Sinks, More Russia Fallout for Big Tech, and Guest Elizabeth Williamson

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Russia’s invasion has more impacts for Big Tech, including Facebook. Elon Musk wants a union vote, and Apple may have big surprises at today’s event. Also, Trump’s Truth Social does not have the largest audience ever. Guest Elizabeth Williamson joins to talk with Kara and Scott about her new book, “Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and The Battle for Truth.” You can find Elizabeth on Twitter at @NYTLiz. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And how much did you miss the dog? I missed you a lot. How much? I hate to say it. So much. So much. But you see, you're putting me in a position because I like Stephanie. And I would like to say she did a great job taking over for you, correct? I like Stephanie in the 11th hour.

Do you? We talked about her naughtiness versus Brian Williams, et cetera, and stuff. But we missed you very much. There's a lot. And I'm eager to talk with you about- Stephanie needs to bring over those Brian Williams cute savings. She's like, that's like having a moose in the back of your Nova. And you're like, oh, what does that mean? That is not her. We discussed that. She's not folksy.

Folksy is not her thing. One of the many things I really like Stephanie is she works very, very hard. She does. She does. Do you follow her Instagram feed? You see that she gets a good four or five hours of sleep a night. I do not follow her Instagram. I'm not on Instagram.

But we discussed her white vinyl outfit, which was interesting. We talked about the crane. Oh, really? Say more. Yes. I didn't listen. Did you not see her first night? Was this like, what are you wearing?

Yes. Was this like the worst Cinemax ever? We discussed what she was wearing. Cinemax is what you talk about. Was this the L word come to podcast? No. We talked about Cinemax. Do the worst Cinemax ever? We discussed what she was wearing. Skinemax is what you talk about. Was this the L word come the podcast? No, we talked about Skinemax. Do you remember Skinemax? Do I remember Skinemax?

Oh, sorry. Oh, I have a very deep relationship with Cinemax. That is great art. And anyway, she was great. And of course we missed you. And so did the fans. Today, more Ukraine news, including the impact on Facebook, Netflix, and Samsung. Also, Trump's new social network is a ghost town, although that is an insult to ghosts.

We'll see what is happening there. We'll speak with author Elizabeth Williamson about how online conspiracy theories became real-world problems. She, of course, wrote a book about Sandy Hook, amazing reporter. But first, I want to give a quick shout out to one of our youngest listeners, Salen in Austin. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Her mom, Tori, says that Salen listens to us twice a week on the way to school with her dad, possibly our youngest fan aside from the golden child. Thanks for listening, Salen. And I just want to note, our producer asked Tori who Salen likes better, and she said, it's a tough choice, but as a young

lady, she's impressed that Kara knows all the business leaders and trends, but loves Scott's sense of humor, and she likes to hear them talk about their kids. Okay, then, in celebration of Salem, I got a couple jokes. Keep them clean. Kara, did you hear about the bike that wouldn't move? No. It was too tired. Hold on. Hold on. Write this down, Salen. What about the cheese that saved the world? It was legendary. Legendary. Salen, cleaning it up. I'm cleaning it up for Salen, Kara. That was not easy. I'm sweating right now. I, Kara. That was not easy. I'm sweating right now. I understand. One more. One more. I'm sweating right now. Do you have any more?

What did the curtain say to the other curtain? What? Pull yourself together. Those are good. Those are good. I got a million of them. All right. We are not going to be doing a children's show because these jokes are terrible. Anyway, Salem, we're very happy you're listening to us. And we welcome all our fans, young and old.

All right, on to some news. It's Apple Day. The companies expect to roll out new versions of iPhone SE, iPad Air, Mac Mini, and a 27-inch monitor. The new gear might help Apple employees when they return to the office on April 11th. They're going to go back. A lot of people are going back now suddenly, which will be interesting. But we'll see what's going to happen with all these things. But as usual, Apple's sort of going away. They're not, of course, announcing what people expect to be, which are glasses eventually, some sort of glasses,

cars and things like that. So this is sort of sticking with what they do best and doing new versions of them. What do you think of this? There's got to be something else. It's pretty hard to sell a 27-inch monitor as compelling. I don't... I would buy one. I have an old monitor. I would buy a new monitor if it's beautiful. No? No? This seems like a giant yawn to me. What I'm saying is I think there's going to be something else. Really? I think they're going to announce something else. Who cares? There's anything here? iPhone SE, iPad Air, Mac Mini.

I don't know. This feels fairly. Nothing. Well, talk about Apple in general. Obviously, they're killing it. They're doing really well. They're obviously doing well improving all these different things. This is the time.

They have two different events. This is the one where all the hardware, the fall hardware line essentially comes out. And a lot of people had expected something fresh like new glasses or something crazy, like something. It's all around AR, but not as yet. Maybe they'll be talking about that here. Well, I would expect they're going to start rolling out a set of features around their payments. I mean, they could flip on a feature in payments that puts them in direct competition with Square, where overnight they have a billion payment processors without that kind of weird dongle you have to push in from.

Right. I mean, if you think about it, Apple's biggest problem right now isn't what to do, it's what not to do. You have cars, you have metaverse, you have payments. I don't see them wandering into the Metaverse anytime soon. Well, technically, they are the biggest Metaverse with the App Store, where they have so many places. Education, enterprise computing. You know what they could also do, Kara, which would be a huge business, and I think they're gearing up for? I think they're going to go into search.

Oh, that's interesting. You keep saying that. You have said that a number of times. Well, it's no less crazy than them vertically integrating into chips, which they did. And if you look at search, it's still growing kind of high teens, low 20s a year. And Apple, with their control over the distribution and their ability to integrate search into your calendar and your apps, they could launch a pretty, I think, overnight, they could say they just capture 10, 20% of the market and integrate it into their software.

Well, I don't know. I think this is just going to be like an upgrade of the Mac, excuse me, the one new Mac, the iPhone SE, the Air, the iPad Air is going to be made better. You know, this is a virtual event, so they're not back in, you know, they have a beautiful presentation area in Cupertino. So nobody's going there. Those are, I have to say, having done so many of those, they're wonderful.

I've had a wonderful time at them. But I think they're going to do- Oh, you've been to them. Oh, many times. Have you been to the Jobs Theater? Is that what it's called? I haven't been to the new one. I was, they did it in San Francisco most of the time,

at different venues in San Francisco, when I was covering it. And that was something else. And I went with some Cook ones. They're really fun. The press is a little too fanboyish, but otherwise, you know, but they have, it's fun. It's a fun event. They have a lot they're going to release over the year. I don't think they're going to be doing just events. That used to be the thing. But there's going to be iPhone 14, three new Apple Watches and more Macs, mixed reality headset. That's what everybody's waiting for is this idea of mixed reality headsets. And I think that's going to be the most important thing. Yeah, the thing that stuck out to me was they're saying they want people or they're suggesting people be back in the office three days a week. And there's no company that I think better aspirationally identifies

or marks the age, I would argue, than Apple. And if they're saying employees are going to be back three days a week, think about what that means for the broader economy because what that implies, it used to be five days a week.

It wasn't coming four. It was coming five days a week. And when what is arguably the most aspirational company in the world sort of endorses a three-day work week, you're talking about, theoretically, a net destruction in commercial office space of 40%. Yeah, it could be. They have, of course, their beautiful circular flying saucer thing in Cupertino. It's quite beautiful. So they spent a lot of money building that thing. And so they don't use other people's office space ever.

They have their own. But yeah, you're right. I think they're going to set the tone. A lot of these tech companies aren't. I think companies, you know, Stephanie did talk about this week. You got to go to your biggest performers and say, what do you want? How do you want to live? And then different people get different things, which will be, we'll see. But I agree, three days a week

will probably be standard at some point. Hybrid, it's not zero one. Hybrid. Non-binary workplace, Kara. Yeah, when's the last time you were in an actual work? You had an office, I went to your office once. Yeah, we're sort of a metaphor, I think for what's gone on the economy.

We rented an entire floor in Soho. I've always – I've been one of those boomers. It was like, you want to work for us? You got to be in the office. Yeah. And if someone had a kid, I like to think we were generous around flexibility. We were always very generous with people when they were going through stuff. But generally speaking, I believed in the electricity and entropy and serendipity of people bumping off each other.

And I used to – if you want to talk about how popular, I had 8 a.m. all-hands meetings in the office every week. I thought it set the tone for the week. You're here to work your ass off, and we're here for economic security. That's just, I was not the Hallmark Channel version of a startup. Can you imagine doing one of those today? Can you imagine doing it? It just wouldn't. It literally wouldn't.

And as a matter of fact, when I brought in a CEO to replace me at L2, the first thing he did was cancel the 8 a.m. meeting on Monday mornings, which got him huge applause around the block. But I had a full floor on Spring and Crosby, and I paid about 70 bucks a foot, way out in front of my skis, total rookie move. And then we did a podcast. We had an epidemiologist on our pod in, I think, March of 2020. And I called, I think it was a guy from the University of Maryland, and I called him and I said, can you just give me a sense? I'm in an office, I'm in New York, we're starting to hear about infections. And he said, Scott, it's worse than anybody thinks. And I went into the office and I told everyone to get their laptops and go home. I put together my spreadsheet and headed to the Riviera Maya with my family and my total go bag.

And I called our tenant, excuse me, our landlord, and I said, I want out. And they said, well, it'll cost you a year's security deposit. So I literally wrote a check, or I say wrote a check. I gave up close to a million bucks. And this was their thinking, and they were honest with me. They said, okay, this thing will be over in three months. It'll take us three months to lease it out, and we get six months of free cash flow. It's still empty two years later. It's still empty. Good move by you. Lucky. None of us thought we'd be here. None of us thought

we'd be still in this for two years. Again, I was the opposite. I rented a very small office. Always had people work at home when they wanted to.

Had people in intentionally. And I don't know what I would do now. I'm certainly never going to manage people again. So who knows? Actually, speaking of workplace,

I'm not allowed to talk about it very much, but I've watched We Crash, which is coming in two weeks, I guess. You are a big frigging character in that series. Say more. I cannot say more. I cannot. I sent you some screenshots. Be honest. Does Brad Pitt play me? No, a bald guy does, and he's very funny. I've heard that. He tweeted at me. His name's Kelly Alcoyne. He's dollar bill and billions, and he played the pastor in The Americans.

He's enjoying himself playing you. I cannot say more because you're not allowed to comment on it, except it's fantastic. The whole thing's fantastic. Did you watch it? Did you enjoy it? So much. So much. Really? And again, I will write about it when it comes out. So I've watched, they were kind enough to forward me the series. I've watched the first three episodes. I'll say this, and I'm not supposed to talk about it either. I think Anne Hathaway steals the show. Fantastic. They're all good.

There's nobody who's not good at that show. She steals the show. There's no stealing. I think she's fantastic. I agree. We cannot talk about it more, but it's really good. But I want to focus on you. You are really the guy who plays you.

Thank you. You're really good. You say I'm good. Kelly O'Connor is good. He's really good the guy who plays you. Go on. Thank you. You're really good. You say I'm good. Kelly O'Connor's good. He's really good. But he channels you. He has several of your tics. And I'm like, oh, my God.

I got to meet this guy now because we should have him on. Let's have him on to talk about what it's like to play you. He seems like a lovely guy. He and I have been tweeting at each other. He seems like a nice man. Yeah, well, tell him to come on to Pivot. We'd love to talk about it. Anyway, it was great.

Speaking of workplace, and that's about workplace. So obviously- Is my shirt off in any of these episodes? And is he jacked? You make a lot of comments like that. No, but not at all. Anyway, Elon Musk says that he wants a union vote at Tesla. After years of resisting union pressure and violating federal labor laws,

Musk called on the UAW to hold a vote at his factory. The about face comes after the President Biden's State of the Unit address, where Biden highlighted electric car efforts from Ford and GM, but didn't mention Tesla. At this point, I think Biden's being kind of not good about doing this. And Ford and GM are both union shops.

So what do you think about this? I mean, it's inevitable, right? Presumably, it's inevitable. Unionization? Of Tesla, but maybe not. Maybe that's what he's doing. I don't think it's inevitable. It wasn't inevitable at Amazon.

Tell me why. I don't. To be honest, I think the fact that he has called for a vote means he's already done research that solidifies the notion that it's not going to pass or they're not going to have union. There's no way he'd be this confident in calling for it if he didn't believe it was going to be rejected. Really? Yeah, I don't think. This was like when he took a Twitter poll after filing to sell shares. So he's got data.

Yeah, he already knows this is going to be rejected. You never know for sure until the vote happens, though, right? You never know, right? Or not. Maybe you do. I think you could probably pretty easily do a statistically significant survey of three to 500 people with a confidence, you know, two standard deviations, plus or minus five points. And if he says 61% are going to vote,

no, he knows that. So he can call for it. So what is that? Don't they come at him again and again and again until they finally get in there? That would be my guess. He's going to be dealing with them, just like Amazon is dealing with the union. It's not over by any stretch. And if you think you're a union giving up on this, why would you? Unions have more power than they've had in a long time. But the thing that, I mean, it's just so hard because there's so many, I think unions have done a terrible job of developing, you know, some unions I think are fantastic. They focus on training. They recognize the power of capitalism. They just want a fair seat at the table. And then there's other unions that I think use children as drug mules to get higher salaries for teachers in the middle of a pandemic.

So it's hard to be reductive about which union efforts make sense and which don't. But for the first time in a while, union membership has been cut in half. Unions as a construct are failing not only in the U.S., but globally. Unions as a construct are failing not only in the U.S., but globally. And for the first time, there's been a little bit of an uptick because people see how out of balance things have gotten with our frontline workers. Have you heard anything about – I don't know anything about this. No, I don't know. I was interested. I think he just – I think Elon leads with his chin, right? He's going to be like, okay, let's just see.

Let's just see. And I think he's probably seen what's happened at Amazon. But I by no means think it's over at Amazon, and I by no means think it will be over here if he wins. It's interesting because the New York Times, the tech workers voted to unionize. I don't think that was any surprise to the management who had forced them into a vote. They wanted that to be done. So I think it'll be an up and down thing. But I think the power is in this case with Elon versus the union. And we'll see. He's got to make a case. He's got to deal with some of their more thorny issues that you've seen lawsuits from the government. He's going to get much more scrutiny just like he is with the government there in California over racist things. I think he's pissed off the wrong people. I think his ad hominem profane attacks against government officials, I just think that's a dumb long-term strategy. It may scratch his inner child's id. You said this, but look at, his best friends

was Zelensky now. He delivered these Starlink things. He's very, you never know what he's going to do. And that's what I think is really somewhat interesting. Well, we do know what he does. And that is, no matter what the topic, whether it's Ukraine or unions, Elon Musk is going to manage to make it all about him. I mean, it's like, finally, the one thing I liked about Russians pouring over the border into Ukraine, the one thing I... I'm not... Wait, I'm very sensitive. Are you pointing out a fundamental... What would Kelly Alcoyne think? What would Kelly Alcoyne think? Anyways, he pours – the Russians pouring over the Ukraine.

I'm like, well, finally we get a break from talking about fucking Trump or Elon. And Elon's like, no, Starlink me. And then two days later, I'm a free speech. I'm like, Jesus Christ. It always is about Elon. But Zelensky had a little tweet about him. He obviously is being helpful. Well, there you go.

We just knew it was going to happen, didn't we? Literally. We just knew it was going to happen. In this case, they need this, so I'm okay. Look at me as I'm there. It's fine. I'm just waiting for them to, like, date Taylor Swift so their PR agents can have a fucking orgy and we can just all explode in a river of whatever, Twitter.

Okay, let's get to our first big story. Obviously, the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to cause us wrinkles in tech and media companies. By the way, we're not qualified to talk about military or on the ground, the horrific stuff that's happening on the ground. And I would recommend checking out the photos in the New York Times by Lindsay Adario. She is a genius. So we're not ignoring that, let me just say. We just are not qualified to talk about it. Anyway, we're going to talk,

focus in on tech and media companies. Obviously, it's been a lot of activity because along with the ground war, there is a very big war for information and influence, really, online. Russia blocked Facebook, claiming discrimination of Russian media because Facebook had blocked some things. Instagram and WhatsApp are still available, and that's because nobody uses Facebook in Russia. They use WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube, along with their own local things like VK and some others.

Twitter is blocked, too. Samsung will stop sending chips and phones to Russia. Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Merck Express announced they'll cut services to Russia, although it's not clear what they're doing exactly. I was looking at some stuff, whether people within the country can use their cards or not.

Netflix and TikTok are suspending most of their services in the country as well. Everyone's sort of either virtue signaling or actually doing some significant things. And it's a back and forth thing between Russia, what Russia's doing, including some laws that make saying it's a war versus a special operations illegal. And there's criminal stuff around in this area. So what do you think? Because it's back and forth. Russia's doing things, and then the tech companies are doing things at the same time. Well, it's what Lincoln said. You can't lose a war with public support. You can't win a war without it. And so the disinformation campaign that Putin has implemented over the last decade using either assets or useful idiots,

Donald Trump, Fox News, and right-wing podcasters who find this toxic masculinity in wrapping themselves in a Putin blanket, but seeing that, oh, he's a real man because he persecutes gay people and he's not woke. And by the way, all those shitheads

have gone eerily quiet the last week. Yeah, or backpedaling. That would be Tucker Carlson and many others, and Trump. He was winning until this broke out, the disinformation wars globally. He has lost since the outbreak. Zelensky has schooled him. I think the social media companies see this as an opportunity to kind of restore, you know, a basis point of their credibility or their concern for the Commonwealth. He's still winning, unfortunately, though, domestically. There's a large population in Russia that believes there isn't a war, that believes that there are soldiers over there, you know, liberating people who are being persecuted in Ukraine.

So he's still winning domestically. But the image in your wife, Amanda, actually retweeted it of these 18-year-old boys in this makeshift tactical gear. And it basically said that these 18-year-olds get three days of training, are given a Kalashnikov and some preliminary training on YouTube and then sent to the front lines. And when you think about, you know, one of the things that's always really, you become more aware of as you get older, if you have any self-awareness, is a lot of your success and your failure isn't your fault. And you think about, okay, these boys, and they are boys, and they are boys, were born in the Ukraine in 2004,

you know, three years after 9-11. And now there's a decent chance, who no fault of their own, they're gonna bleed out in some strange street after taking a shell. And it's just, you know, you just think about, at the end of the day, war is really about old men protecting their assets. I noted you said that on Twitter.

And sending young men to die. And it just gets you. You have sons. Yeah, they'd be the worst. You have a nine-year-old son. What if they had made the mistake of being born in the Ukraine? It really rattles you to your core. Yeah, Stephanie had the same feeling. When you think about just how, God, there by the grace of God go mine, you know. Yeah. But it's been very, but the information wars are very powerful because you have nations that have traditionally avoided taking a side, taking a side.

Switzerland, you have Germany sending in stingers. You know, the question I have around all of this and, you know, you have all this war against oligarchs, all these – I don't think this is virtue signaling. I think this is real. The problem is that Russia has this hedge because the economic turmoil has sent oil up to 140 bucks a barrel. And this is the most liquid market in the world. Even if we try not to buy it, Russia will find a buyer. They produce 10 million barrels a day. So they have 1.4 billion in cash flows. Also, I believe, I believe that Putin's plan is that after seeing the ruble get decimated and after seeing all these Russian public companies get decimated, if I were him, and he's smarter than me and most political analysts, I think the world's largest LBO will be the state-sponsored takeover or take private of these Russian companies.

I just think he's going to— Back from the oligarchs. He's just going to nationalize all of them. Interesting. And he will control all the oil, all the fertilizer plants, and then he will redole them out to the oligarchs that are in favor of him. Because everybody's talking about the pressure we're putting on oligarchs, and there is some of that. But here's the thing. They're kind of all in on Putin because Putin is the one that made them. These aren't guys that-

Yeah, 100%. I do think there is people, there's been several stories of people that live in Ukraine talking to their relatives who don't believe them, even though it's like, I'm under fire. And they're like, no, you're not. It's sort of a bigger version of my mom and me on Fox News, that kind of thing. And a more serious one, obviously, because it's usually over Hillary Clinton with my mom, but some falsehood about Hillary Clinton. But one of the things that's interesting, I did a really good podcast today with Clint Watts,

who runs the Foreign Policy Research Institute, which focuses on Russian disinformation. He thinks a lot more is getting in, and there's dropping Wi-Fi spots, VPNs, all kinds of things. And the fact that 4,500 people were arrested yesterday, that's a lot of people in Russia. That's not very common. That it's eventually going to get in and that he's really misplayed the information war here. And so the issue is the olds versus the youngs in Russia because the olds are on VK and follow RT.

And the youngs are like, no, no, no. And they will start to notice, you know, especially if Instagram gets, they're very active users. And so you have this whole bunch of people who don't have anything to do all day. Like they have hours and hours on these online services. And so Russia from an information perspective has been globalized. And the question is, can you de-globalize it fast enough for Putin to lose power? And so, you know, I don't know. You know, you have Senator Graham calling on Russians to kill him,

like, which was astonishing to put that on Twitter. You might have said that quietly, maybe in the old days. Now he just tweets it out. That is how world wars start. Yeah, I would agree. What's really going to hurt

is things like Samsung, whether Apple works, whether iPhones, whether they get to be entertained if they're cut off from things. It'll start to take a thing. Payment processes are very important. They're too globalized from an information point of view, but I don't know. Well, you know, supposedly they recognize they're losing the war around social media. So to their credit, they're bringing in who is arguably the most talented person in the world in running a social media platform. You know who they're bringing in? Devin Nunes. We'll get to that in a second. That's good political humor. We'll get to that in a second because that's a disaster. I think this could be, I think information warfare here is very important. I don't think it's a silly. I think this could be – I think information warfare here is very important.

I don't think it's a silly thing in this country, but it's not silly there. It's hearts and minds is really what's going on there. 100%. You wouldn't have seen – do you realize that the European Union all agreed on sanctions? All 20 – on political activity, all 27 nations have to agree. Can you imagine trying to get Belgium to agree with Greece on anything? All 27 nations agreed to this radically long and punitive list of sanctions. We've never seen NATO being able to, I mean, I'm sorry, the EU, the European Union couldn't keep Britain in. I mean, and yet they all came together and voted on this. So, you're right, Zelensky is the social media,

the information gangster of the year. It's all he's got. It's not all he's got. He's got apparently a pretty good army, but not good enough because it's so big. But what's important here is that I hope, now, when I interviewed Watts, he said they're not doing this. I hope we're dropping Wi-Fi hotspots in there. I hope we're dropping Starlinks in there. Anything we can to get the information through, I think, is highly effective. This is a highly online society. And to drop an iron curtain, I don't think you can do it anymore.

I don't think you can. Well, what do you know? A 69-year-old doesn't understand social media or doesn't understand information about social media. They're active users. So I think what's going to happen is you're going to have an old group of people who believe the current, you know, whatever is thrown at, shoveled at them by the government. And then you have young people who just don't. And so that's where we should be targeting. If we were playing offense from a cyber point of view, information is how we should do it.

It's like dropping leaflets, you know, back in the day kind of thing. We should be dropping leaflets digitally. Good morning, Vietnam. Yeah, remember that? Yeah, that's right, yeah. Anyway, last thing, speaking of Elon, by the way, because we can't ever not talk about Elon,

he put in the Starlink, but he said he's not going to block Russian media like YouTube or others might. He tweeted that his Starlink system won't censor anyone, quote, unless at gunpoint. So he's a free speech absolutist. That's what he calls it. I say we get a gun. No, don't you dare. I'm kidding. That was just a joke.

Just a joke. Just a joke. You insufferable numbskull. Okay, first off, did anyone ask him to censor? No, no. Okay, let's talk about Elon some more. Just so you know, McDonald's is still operating in Russia. So is Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Papa John's, and Starbucks.

Ukraine also has active McDonald's. And WeWork. WeWork is still in. Sandeep said he was going to continue there. Yep, yep, yep. Snapchat disabled its heat map featuring Ukraine. Ukraine has asked Amazon and Microsoft to kick Russia off their cloud services. Microsoft has pulled back services.

Anyway, we will see. We will see what happens. But this is a very important theater of conflict from a media perspective and a cyber perspective, including defense. I'm telling you, Cara, he takes the oil money and he nationalizes every company on the cheap. And it consolidates his power. It's just kind of frightening to think about. All right. That's a very out there thing.

I think that's a very smart analysis. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about failing true social, someone who's not very good at social compared to others. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Elizabeth Williamson, about Sandy Hook conspiracy theories. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

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In, knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. when I last looked at it, placing it behind Planet Fitness and Akinator, an app for a genie that can read your mind. Trump is reportedly furious with the low numbers, though hasn't yet posted anything on his own social network. He made one post, actually, on his own social network, I believe. He hasn't done anything else. You know, they still haven't done the SPAC situation yet. What do you, what thinks you of this? I still haven't gotten in. I just got a note saying, I'll get in soon because there's such a high demand, but clearly there's not, there's a

lot of nothing going on from people who've gotten in there. What do you think? We said this already, correct? True Social and it's, it's a digital world acquisition core. It's parents back, most overvalued company in the world right now. You have, I mean, you have a company being run by Devin Nunes that's a tech and media company based on a premise where there's already a ton of benchmarks that show that networks, social media networks,

that did traffic in one viewpoint don't work. Yeah. Whether it's, I mean, when we had on stage, what was it, Getter and Parler? Jason Miller from Getter. They all want to talk about censorship because none of them want to talk about the fact that they're shitty businesses.

And that they're not getting any sort of traction. And this thing, I was reading our notes. I didn't know it had actually launched. Yeah. There's nobody talking about it. And the fact that the downloads here are, as you said, I mean, this and the valuation on this thing, I looked at the stock, the cost to borrow stock to go short is 110% a year, meaning just the interest rate to borrow stock to go short,

you have to pay the value of your position every 12 months. I mean, this thing is, I don't know. I got to be honest. I'm getting a real joy from it. But I think it says something, and it goes to what I believe will be an activist, another activist play this year. I think the most important media company in the world right now is Twitter. I think it's totally unassailable. Look at it through the Ukraine situation. I was on with the Washington Post national security analyst

on my other podcast, and I always ask, where do you get your information? And they kind of start, and they wave, and they go, I get up, I look at Twitter. Yeah. People have made amazing use of Twitter, like all kinds of national security people. Similar to COVID, but in this case,

it's not quite so much screaming, but you get some really amazing threads. It used to be called an article, I guess, or a column, but they're using it. And the news, the amount of news that goes on and the ability to see things quickly. I agree. I said this to someone this weekend.

It's a media company. It's a media. It should be doing so much more in media. And to goose it. Or either a media distributor. I'm not really clear that they would get into editorial. But what's interesting, one of the other things, as you noted, conservatives have accused Twitter of shadow banning, which is an expression they use, meaning disappearing them for years. This might be evidence that people just don't want to listen.

And also not talking to each other. You have to have a place where everybody's talking to each other. And there can be really only one. There can't be a lot of them. Even though I would really like more social networks of some kind, they have to be super different, like TikTok or Snapchat. They have to be different. They have to serve a different audience.

Musk and Trump were the most visible characters in the world. And now one has lost 97% of his awareness. And people will say it's because he's been voted out of office. I don't think that's it. I think it's because he got kicked off of Twitter. And he can't go out and scratch his id eight times a day to 70 million people. Twitter is the most powerful platform in the world right now. Yeah, I would agree. In terms of news and events

and politics and it's just, it's just, they go to subscribe, a couple things. I know I'm a tire driver. They go to subscription and then force identity to clean up all the bots.

It's a $100 stock. All right. Okay, you keep saying it. I like your broken clockness of it. I like when the guy who played you in We Crash just said the same thing, but I like you saying it too. Did he say that? No.

By the way, in We Crash— He didn't say boom, but he kind of did. He made a bad joke. Does he end up eloping with Emily Ratajkowski? Does that happen? No. No? Okay.

Be honest. Has she called and asked about me? You can be honest. She has not. Never once. Anyway, back to Trump. He? You can be honest. She has not. Never once. Anyway, back to Trump. He has only 140,000 followers on True Social. He had 90 million on Twitter.

That's got to hurt. 140,000? Yes, that's got to hurt. If I could get in, because it's so popular. He has a tenth of the following of Kara Swisher. That's correct. He has a tenth of the following of Kara Swisher. Not on True Social, because I can't get in,

because Devin Nunes is running the show. Who knows Devin? Devin, let me frig into this thing so I can take a look at it, you know, so I can argue with Marjorie Taylor Greene. By the way, they're all reposting what's on Twitter, which is, of course, that's what they're doing. They're much more active on Parler and Getter, I'll tell you that. They were initially. They were. I don't know.

You just can't go to all these different things and post everywhere. You have to just pick a lane is essentially it. Anyway, we don't expect much from this. We'll see what happens when it moves forward. Okay, next up, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Vita Elizabeth Williamson is a feature writer in the New York Times Washington Bureau and the author of Sandy Hook, An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth. She joins us to discuss how conspiracy theories and misinformation start online and make the jump into real life, in this case with tragic circumstances, over the course of many years since the initial incident in Sandy Hook, which was the murder of children.

Welcome, Elizabeth. Thanks, Cara. It's nice to be with you both. So I just want, I'm going to start because I interviewed Len Posner, who is one of the fathers of one of the children murdered there. And we talked a lot about all his efforts over the years, and which is what you chronicle in the book, to try to stop people like Alex Jones from using platforms and the incredibly slow-moving and almost cruel way that these companies did not help him in dealing with it. Can you talk a little bit about that? You know, in this particular case, I'll talk about wider conspiracy theories, but this was sort of the first time that online had been used in such a way that the companies could do nothing about it or didn't do anything about it.

Yeah, I mean, Sandy Hook is a the story of the spread of the conspiracy theories is really a foundational story in a lot of ways, because it sort of predicted what we would go through when it came to, you know, Pizzagate and QAnon and coronavirus and the 2020 election lie. And then there we are on January 6th at the Capitol. But initially, Lenny used a really great analogy to describe this. He was recalling the H.G. Wells time machine movie adaptation in which the guy is standing in front of these bronze doors and trying to get in. And he can't because no one can hear him and they're impermeable. And that to him was Facebook and the other platforms. As he was sort of pleading with them, can you please take some of this content down because people are hunting us online? And he just couldn't get anything other than an automated response.

So talk about what happened so people understand what happened after Sandy Hook, after this tragedy, where a total of how many people were killed, including teachers? It was 20 first graders and six educators. And soon after, in fact, if you go back and you look at Alex Jones's broadcast, beginning on the first day, he was convinced that this was some kind of a gambit to impose draconian gun control measures by the Obama administration. reporting from mainstream media, police reports, confusion and chaos, the things you would expect after a tragedy of this magnitude, and pointing out anomalies, which they said were evidence that these people, including the families of the murdered first graders and educators, were actors in a plot, that this was all part of an elaborate pretext to confiscate Americans' firearms. So they decided, they created this wholesale online, correct? Like an online detective agency

that had decided this was, this is what was happening and they would use on meeting each other online to do so, correct? Yes. And I think you and I have talked about this in the past, you know, saying that on Facebook, some of the first Facebook groups were around knitting or quilting. And that's what it really reminded me of. There they were gathering in this group called Sandy Hook Hoax, and they were all kind of, you know, in a quilting circle, just embroidering this wild tale of government, you know, government pretext to deprive people of their freedoms and family complicity in this plot. So Jones' Infowars platform made somewhere around $165 million between 2015 and 2018, according to the HuffPost. If you're smart enough to make $165 million, launching a media company whose primary communication is to spread these conspiracy

theories and create this kind of unimaginable pain or extend it. At what point is this libelous? At what point is it slander to spread false information that you know is false, profit off of it, and basically disparage, say, these parents are lying, their kids aren't dead. I would just like to know the status of what has happened and what can be done when you have this truly type of mendacious behavior, the likes of which we really haven't seen before. I can't remember people as aggressively leveraging social media to extend the horrific pain of parents. Yeah, no, you're right. It was a first. I mean, conspiracy theorists have been with us as long as the country has. But the kind of personal targeting and targeting of people by name,

and we can't, of course, forget the fact that this was not just the guy on the subway with a Xerox sheet of crazy claims. These people were reaching millions of people in minutes. So those lawsuits really wanted to test that, you know, is this as Alex Jones and all the conspiracy theorists, and by the way, the platforms themselves claim, is does the First Amendment protect this kind of speech that unleashes years of torment and really hunting and harassment of our most vulnerable people? And that's what they tried to test.

And Jones actually going in was saying, yes, I'm going to be a champion for the First Amendment. I'm going to just face down these families and we're going to try these cases. There are four of them. And we're going to draw them to a conclusion and you will see that I'll be protected by my right to free speech. But what he ended up doing was stonewalling all of the cases, not showing up for depositions, failing to relinquish records ordered by the court, including financial records. And so by the end of last year, he was defaulted in all four cases, meaning he was liable by default. And now beginning this spring, there will be jury trials, but they will be solely to establish how much he should pay the families for what he's put them through. Also, please remind everyone, and we talked about this on Twitter spaces, how much money he made during this time period. This came out through court documents. Yeah, there have been some recent. So Scott just mentioned $165 million. So if you average that out over, say, the Trump years, as I do in today's paper, there is more than $50 million in revenues that he has reaped in his business by selling merchandise and selling advertising on Infowars.

Against what he was talking about. Now, the way they attacked him was a really novel way. It was through copyright. That's what Lem was talking about, is that that's how he got the companies to stop, to pull things down. It wasn't because it was wrong. It wasn't because it was mendacious. It was not anything except that they had used photographs of his son who died. Exactly right. So what Lenny had done after Noah's death was set up a Google Plus page where he posted a lot of photographs, family photos, Noah with his sisters, trips to

the beach, videos of him, you know, sliding down the stairs, playing in the park. And he ended up having that material taken and stolen by these people who put it into videos and made posts and put it on Facebook and did all of these, used it to sort of push these claims. So he was able to use, because he owns that material, he was able to use copyright laws to get that taken down. And there were thousands of pieces of material that he had taken down through that means. And that's the way he had to, not that you can't let him do this, it was, it's a picture of my son misused. In a way, it was sort of like he found the technical loophole. And what was their relationship now? Have they changed over time? Because I know,

you know, I did that famous interview with Mark where he was defending Alex Jones and then defended Holocaust deniers. I do think that it gets down to this principle of giving people a voice. Even if it's a hoax. Yeah. I think pretty much turned on both because they threw Alex off the platforms and so did the others. What do you imagine went on within the companies from your perspective of how they looked at this? It was fascinating because as you remember, it was like dominoes, you know, one after the other kicked him to the curb.

And so it's hard to know what they were thinking inside, but I do think it was the combination of your interview with Mark Zuckerberg and a letter to the editor that Lenny and Veronique, Noah's mother, Noah Posner's mother, that they did shaming the company and calling Zuckerberg out on, you know, in his interview with you, he talked about Holocaust denial as a matter of opinion. And they mentioned that in their letter. And then they also said, what about making the families, survivors of tragedy, a protected class? And that seemed to get the ball rolling. and that seemed to get the ball rolling. So it would seem to me that this might have sort of a reshaping of media, that if you think about the media, this comes down to a lack of trust in our institutions, right?

No one, there's no veracity in what you're hearing through mainstream media, whether it's CNN or Fox, it feels like that some of this is self-inflicted, that it's become more about opinion and made the story about them and dunking on the other side. Do you see an emergence of any media that is attempting to fill this void and be the

one to be a voice that most people look at and go, okay, this does appear to be true? Is there an opportunity here? Is this giving rise to new media outlets or new source of information? I'm not sure I see that, actually. I can't really answer that. I think what it has done is it is rare to find Sandy Hook hoax material online now. And that's been through Lenny's efforts, but also just the public drubbing that these companies have gotten, partly from folks like yourselves, who have you know, have said, how can you allow this to circulate? And how can you sort of, I think, you know, Carol put it this way, you know, you're using the First Amendment as a cloak for human greed. You know, what you're doing is

keeping people online by feeding them this kind of material, hoax after hoax, conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, whether you're talking about Sandy Hook or you're talking about coronavirus or you're talking about the 2020 election. People are online for hours, you know, giving up all their personal information, you know, reading advertising. At the same time, they're just immersing themselves in this trash. Right. Talk about those people, because one of the most interesting things, a lot of them were young mothers, correct? Yeah.

That were against the parents of the children who were murdered. Yeah. I mean, initially, what they wanted was, and there's one profile in particular, she'd had some trauma in her past. She was a mom of two boys who were around the ages of the children killed. And she said she went on this Sandy Hook Hoax Facebook page just saying, I am here for anybody who tells me that this didn't happen because I can't take it. You know, she had been someone who had actually had a car accident in which she hit a child and the child died. So this was just more than she could handle at that point. And Lenny

has characterized it as a kind of post-traumatic stress that those individuals are going through, but those were the people he was able to reach. They really just didn't want to face that this had occurred, but they were open to facts and persuasion. But others not. But others not. Yeah. So he convinced that group early on, and they actually became some of his most committed volunteers battling against these hoaxers and trying to get this content taken down. But the others are having fun. You characterize it as a party online over the murder of children. Yeah. Lenny was calling it a hoax party. They got a lot of psychic income from sharing this material, praising each other when they came up with a new anomaly or a new ripple

to the plot. It was a sort of social cohesion, a kind of tribal circle that they were in sharing these theories and, by the way, presenting a united front in attacking these families. So, I'm just curious, going back to this case where Alex Jones has defaulted, will the remedies most likely be, I mean, will it bankrupt him or will he use likely personal bankruptcy laws to shield his assets? Is he moving assets offshore? I'm just, I would like to see some of the investigative journalism that has... It'd be great to know what he is planning to do to defend his assets and how the court goes after them. Do you have any information there? Actually, yes. There is some information emerging,

even as we speak, because he is having to file declarations of net worth and different documents that will inform the juries as they head to trial. What they can see, and this was something that I found for the book and also that we've reported in the New York Times, he has created a network of LLCs in which he's right now claiming that he owes more money than he's made to one of these LLCs. But you can kind of trace the ownership of the LLC and find that it's not really an outside entity. But, you know, these facts are still emerging and, you know, there will be a lot of investigative work done on this. In terms of where he's hiding it, because then he sort of, after Sandy Hook, he sort of, you know, hopped right over to election lies. And it was an integral part, apparently, of what

happened on January 6th. He was one of the many people pushing those theories and continue to. Exactly. I mean, I think, you know, Ukraine is just something we can talk about when we talk about these theories, because you look at, here's Putin making a naked bid for empire and using a campaign of, quote, denazification, this mind-numbing lie to justify it. What I think this shows us is that I worked as a foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe for 10 years, you know, including three years in Putin's Russia. And you can see now that, you know, what was once the province of a foreign adversary like Russia, sowing nationwide discord and minutes, you know, through really sophisticated means, now anybody with a smartphone can do it. And that's what the 2020 election lie taught us, that, you know, it's not only Jones, but it's any person who decides that the election was stolen and has any kind of a platform on social media. And in this case, Ukraine is fighting back, you know, and we find that a lot more, some of it is misinformation too, but we find that a lot more heroic as opposed to dastardly, which is kind of

interesting. Yeah. I think whether you're talking about, you know, the kinds of online fighting with conspiracy theorists, or you're talking about, you know, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is true that the first casualty of war is truth. Well, I just want to point out that Spotify and Joe Rogan had Alex Jones on when these claims had been proven to be false, defamatory, slanderous. And this is a publicly traded company. This is someone who has, you know, so we're all talking about, you know, Joe Rogan's rights in terms of free speech, you know, should spot. And I don't know how you reverse, if there's any attribution or legal notion here, but this is a public company that is platforming Alex Jones and taking a hands-off approach. Were there other media companies that for ratings

or under the banner of free speech decided to platform Alex Jones? speech decided to platform Alex Jones? Not necessarily, no. But what was surprising early on was that he mounted such a vociferous sort of uproar over what he thought would be a pending watershed for gun safety legislation that he actually made it onto CNN. He was on with Piers Morgan. He was on the Howard Stern show. He had a real platform. I mean, he doubled his viewership between 2013 and 2016 by pushing these claims. And part of it was because he found that he was able to gain a mainstream media platform for himself by being a vociferous voice against gun control. And unfortunately, people don't watch InfoWars from that world. And so they didn't ask him about his Sandy Hook claims. So he got the platform with none of the cost. Nobody called

him on the carpet. So what do you imagine is going to happen to him? What is this? What does Sandy Hook say to all of us? It was sort of the canary, I think Len called it canary in the coal mine of what's happening. What's your greatest worry? And then what's your hope that this will lead to? We won't need Russia to interfere. We won't need them to sow disinformation. A swath of the Republican Party has proven themselves willing to do that themselves. Not only that, but Stop the Steal has become a model for autocracies around the world. If you don't like the results of an election, even a sham election, you can just say it was a fraud and see, you know, roll the dice and try your luck or start to repress your own people until they accept that lie. So that's my worst fear. My hope is, and I don't want to put all this on the youngs, but I think that there is a lot of skepticism among the newest category of users of social media. And I do think that that is hopeful. I also think that we're developing some policy answers for this and, you know, including addressing, you know, certain ways to curtail the immunity provided by Section 230. And I also think that there's a strong look at this by the platforms themselves.

Lenny has much more. He's no longer standing outside those bronze doors. He flags content. He's a trusted flagger for these organizations. It's a shame. It took just a public shaming for them to do the right thing by him. They're still doing the wrong thing by many others. thing by him. They're still doing the wrong thing by many others. But I do think that this is, we're starting to see what a grave danger this is and taking some action. Well, I think I recommend this book highly. And Len Posner is a big character in it. He's a hero, really, truly a hero after terrible, the worst tragedy that anybody could suffer. The book is called Sandy Hook, An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth. It's available starting today.

Thank you, Elizabeth Williamson. Thanks, Liz. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Cara. All right, Scott, that's kind of bracing, isn't it? Anyway, great book, great reporter, and we will be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month at Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca.

Okay, Scott wins and fails. What is your, i have a fail can i do your fail disney ceo bob uh chapik won't condemn the florida don't say gay bill he put out a memo that i found mildly offensive um you know saying that there's other ways to i want to be crystal clear that the entire leadership team um uh unequivocally stand in support of LGBTQ plus employees and their families and their communities who are committed to creating a more inclusive company and world. We all share the same goal of a more tolerant, respectful world. than any one bill in one state. I believe the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through inspiring content we produce and welcoming culture we create and the diverse community organizations we support. Okay.

It means I'm not gonna- So that was a conference room full of $850 an hour communications consultants gangbanging a memo and turning it into something fucking meaningless. Yeah, yeah. This is a slam dunk. Yeah.

We love Florida. Florida's been great to us. We stand with 100% our gay brothers and sisters, and we are 100% in opposition to this legislation. It's a three-sentence memo. Well, they've been doting money to statewide elected officials who supported the bill. He added the company also donated to politicians who opposed it. Well, they've been donating money to statewide elected officials who supported the bill. He added the company also donated to politicians who opposed it.

Well, they haven't given money to everybody, to be fair. They give money to everybody. They spread it around. But this is how ugly this thing is. So, I think there's a legitimate conversation that if your child is pursuing hormone therapy under the age of 18, the parents should be informed. I think that's a worthwhile discussion. child is pursuing hormone therapy under the age of 18, the parent should be informed. I think that's a worthwhile discussion.

I think it's a worthwhile discussion, this notion, or at least the fear that, you know, when 10 people in a class in whatever, seventh or eighth grade, raise their hand and say, I am this sexual orientation, that's a worthwhile conversation. Yeah. worthwhile conversation. When you have a legislation called don't say gay, how the fuck is that any different than state-sponsored legislation that says don't say Jew or don't say black? How is it any different? You're starting from a point of, I am going to be a bigot because I believe there is a vein on the far right that is also bigoted that will see me equally as crazy. And you always got to go back to the source of the disease. And the source of the disease here is something really boring. And it's always the boring shit that gets you. It's gerrymandering. They went into Texas. The new lines have been drawn

just recently. And they have packed all of the Democratic districts with all Democrats. They have packed all the Republican districts with all Republicans. So what does that create? It means general elections are no longer elections. Every election is now a primary election where everybody tries to be crazier on the left or crazier on the right. And we end up with legislation with titles of don't say gay. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, one of the things that – but Chapik could know better than this. He told the staff that I do not want anyone to mistake a lack of statement for lack of support as we have seen time and again.

Corporate statements do very little to change outcome or mind. Jesus Christ. Instead, they are weaponized by one side or the other for the divine and flame. Simply put, they can be counterproductive and undermine more effective ways to achieve change.

Well, I hope you are beating them up behind the scenes, Bob, because if you're not, saying something publicly makes a difference. It made a difference in the trans bathroom debate. It makes a difference. It may seem like virtue signaling, but it isn't. Not for Disney. Disney runs bathroom debate. It makes a difference. It may seem like virtue signaling, but it isn't.

Not for Disney. Disney runs that state. Disney runs that state. And when you push back with your cruises or whatever, these politicians pay attention. But whatever. Whatever. Don't worry about it, Bob. I want the other Bob back.

That's all I have to say. The other Bob wouldn't have done it. And his cashmere sweaters. I think Bob Iger would have handled this differently. I think Bob Iger would have handled this differently. Totally. He would have done something. This is not what Iger would have handled this differently. Totally, totally. He would have done something. This is not what Chapek wants to be known for.

Yeah, he just seems to be. It's a terrible decision. This guy seems, a lot of his, I don't know. I just, I want the other Bob. I want Bob one back. Anyway, that is my fail. My win is going to be this WeCrash, but I can't say anything more. So what is your win and fail?

My win is Airbnb, where I am a shareholder, disclosure, but I'm fascinated by the fact that people are reserving apartments in Ukraine as a means of giving them money. It strikes me it's now become sort of a GoFundMe or a payments platform. And it just got me thinking that Airbnb is probably going to evolve into the launch of credit cards, similar to the SBG credit card, where you get 2% credit on Airbnb stays. They'll be able to transact revenues. Because that's the key. If you can't use crypto or you can't send money to Ukraine, you can Airbnb. Airbnb is now a payments platform. So it strikes me when you have, and everyone's in a race for super app, right? Uber's now doing food, ticket reservations, event reservations. Everyone's in a race for super app. And Airbnb's really elegant UI and design could push them into dating, into payments, into banking. You get off

your plane and boom, it says, hi, do you need a ride? Do you need a date? Do you need to transfer money? Do you need a credit card? It's on your phone. It's called the Airbnb, you know, Amex card or whatever. Maybe they don't even need a processor. But my win is I think Airbnb now has become, it's pretty obvious, they kind of accidentally became a payment platform for donations to the Ukraine, or excuse me, Ukraine. My fail is... You have a big fail right now. Go for it. Well, Joseph Politano wrote a great article in Substack, and Derek Thompson's been talking about kind of this abundance economy or the abundance agenda, which has led to stagnation. And that is, I believe almost everything we do in our society from a government or tax or fiscal policy is

nothing but a thinly veiled transfer of wealth from young people to old people. We talk about income inequality, but generational inequality is really the epicenter of a lot of our problems because the ultimate compact any society has is that if you play by the rules, a 30-year-old will be doing better than his or her parents. And for the first time in American society, that is no longer the case. And what we can do, one of the many things, but an important thing we can do, is expand opportunities around higher education. It's the reason I'm here with you. It's still a fantastic on-ramp into a great middle or upper income lifestyle, and that is to take advantage of the best universities in the world. And while we've been able to scale Google and we've been able to scale Salesforce 24% a year, we can't seem to scale our great public universities more Salesforce 24% a year. We can't seem to scale

our great public universities more than 1% a year. And part of that is evidenced by what has happened at the University of California in Berkeley, where a neighborhood group has bound together and using over-regulation in California around environmental protection has basically forced, and the Supreme Court of California has upheld the decision, where they are not going to be allowed to build additional housing on land they own, on land that Cal owns. And as a result, they've had to send out 5,000 letters and say that we are going to have to reduce or maintain our student population. And this reflects something much more mendacious in our society. So this is just so people don't know, Berkeley is a very regulated area.

It's like if you want to talk about California, well, Berkeley would be the place you might start in. And so people in the neighborhood, and this is not uncommon, the town and gown push and pull. It happened in Georgetown near Georgetown University. And so what they're doing is you can't house these students, and therefore you can't expand and make it bigger. And it restricts the ability of Berkeley to add more students. Well, it creates a scarcity mindset. And that is if I already have a house, I don't want more housing. If I'm already a big company, I don't want competition.

If I already have a university degree, I want to make admissions more difficult. And this is an older population saying, I don't want change. I don't want churn. I want scarcity, which increases the value of my assets at the cost of young people. And by the way, the population of students happens to be browner, younger, more female than the homeowners, who, by the way, none of them moved into their homes before Berkeley was there. Right. And so if there has ever been, in my opinion, license for eminent domain where investments in public infrastructure create good for the commonwealth. The University of California, Berkeley has the second most Nobel Prize winners in the world.

We have a habit of producing women who end up in the cabinet. So when you reduce the student population by 10%, you are reducing Nobel Prize winners, you are reducing females in the cabinet of the administration by 10%. And this is nothing but the thinly veiled attempt by an older generation, which we have gotten very good at, at creating scarcity such that our assets go up at the cost of future generations and younger generations. And also, I'm sorry, go ahead, Kara. Just for people who don't know the area, I taught at Berkeley a journalism class there one semester, just once. It's a very nice area now around the university, but it is dominated by the university. Anyone moving in there has to know that, has to understand.

But the housing prices have gone up rather significantly, and so there's sort of a nimby kind of thing happening there. It already was there. But it's really – there's no question if you moved in, the university dominates that whole neighborhood in Berkeley where it is located. I call this bullshit of Philip Seymour Hoffman and other actors who get whipped up to a frenzy and say NYU was growing too fast and was losing the character of Soho. I'm like NYU is the character of Soho. I'm like, NYU is the character of Soho. Again, this all comes back to the same thing. You want things to slow down and not change once you got yours. But how are we going to level up young people?

And if you talk about the one place we absolutely need to scale, it also, to be fair, it demands and warrants a more creative conversation from university leadership to say, should we be building campuses in less expensive impacted areas? Should we be moving to hybrid learning so we can expand capacity? Should we be developing products outside of the traditional four-year degree, a two-year degree in cybersecurity or health tech? So, we need to be creative in higher ed. But public institutions, if there is one point, if we can take back homes running Amtrak or putting in a military base, we should be able to build housing on the land we own for our greatest, in my opinion, greatest upward lubricant of the middle class in history, which is our

great public institutions. This was no surprise on all sides. It's kind of, you know what I mean? Because if you know those neighborhoods, again, the prices have gone up. It's now a very attractive place to live in the Bay Area. And it has a very push-pull, but it's like, listen, the students were there first. Sorry, they were. You have to know when you're moving into Berkeley, you're going to get the University

of California at Berkeley. What's more important, housing prices of boomers or access to the greatest upper-level public? And by the way, the moment we started, and I'm obviously a Cal grad, but the moment we started integrating diversity into the rankings, the University of California at Berkeley became the number one ranked school in the nation. We don't see that as important to expand. You have this life-changing drug called the University of California, and you want to limit its access to people? Yeah. But you're right about the, they have to figure out new ways to teach and not just be physical. 100%. It's a beautiful campus, by the way, and it's very vibrant. And there's certainly a lot of parties. My brother went there and had a party house. I mean, I can't imagine he

drove people crazy. My sister-in-law went there. But again, this is just the wrong decision, just the wrong decision. Anyway, so my win is Airbnb as an adjacent payment platform and all the opportunity to scale into different categories. And my fail is the scarcity culture fomented by my generation at the cost of younger generations. Yep, 100%. Those are very good ones. It's a very good argument, Scott Galloway. I'm glad you're back. Thank you, Cara.

I'm glad you're back, other guy. What's his name again? He's the actor playing you again? Kelly Alcoyne. I'm going to call you Kelly. We're going to get together. We'll get together with him. All right.

Okay. You keep saying that. Okay. All right. How is your date with Ben Stiller? Has that happened yet? It is happening. It's set.

Talk about an awesome foursome. It's going to be me, the very handsome George Hahn, the very soulful Rex Chapman, and the very famous Ben Stiller. I'm going to have him. Did that happen with your old? Don't go there. Don't go there. Okay. With Ando?

Yeah, I'm not inviting Ando this time, but I want him to hear about it because he'll get jealous. I hope Ben shows up. I'd feel sad if he doesn't. For you, sad for you. Don't even say that. Don't even say that. Ben's excited. We've been texting.

I would have a backup. A backup? I would have a backup celebrity. I need a backup celeb. Yeah, bringing Kelly into this picture. Anyway, in any case, I hope you have a good time. Anyway, don't forget, if you've got a question for us, whether it's about tech, business, media, or whatever you want to discuss, go to nymag.com slash pivot or call 855-51-PIVID. The link is also in our show notes. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more.

Can you please read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Naim and Evan Engel and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Ingerotat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mule Saverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Let's have legislation

that says, let's say gay. Let's say black. Let's say Jews. Let's say women. Let's say people of color. Let's say America.'s say Jews let's say women let's say people of color let's say America push back on this bullshit