Pivot - Twitter’s new board, Silicon Valley vs. Washington’s approach to COVID-19, and Aminatou Sow joins to discuss women in leadership

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about the deal reached at Twitter, the fate of Jack Dorsey and his tenure as CEO. They discuss how big tech companies have been stepping up to take care of gig-workers as COVID-19 spreads; Silicon Valley's approach has been drastically different from the government's, thus far. Facebook takes some action on misleading Trump campaign ads connected to the 2020 Census ... but Kara and Scott think one ad is not enough. In Friend of Pivot we hear from podcast host and author Aminatou Sow on what we're missing about International Women's Day and how to create gender parity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Pivot comes from Virgin Atlantic. Too many of us are so focused on getting to our destination that we forgot to embrace the journey. Well, when you fly Virgin Atlantic, that memorable trip begins right from the moment you check in. On board, you'll find everything you need to relax, recharge, or carry on working. Buy flat, private suites, fast Wi-Fi, hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. delicious dining and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure.

I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway, or as my friends call me. Face for podcasting. That's right. We're on video, Cara. We're on video. We're like the Howard Stern. You're Robin Quivers. I'm Howard Stern. I think you're Howard Stern and I'm Robin Quivers, correct?

Is that something we're doing? Robin Givens, you mean? Yeah. Wait, is it Givens or Quivers? Quivers. Oh, my God. She's key to the show. Key.

She's the solvent that makes everything work there. Exactly. So we're tweeting this on YouTube because we feel like we want to get more people listening. They want to see how we operate. Anything else we want out of this video situation? We want to give the ladies a little something. I'm going to start wearing midriffs.

Come on. Our fans deserve it. You are not wearing midriffs. We are going to wear different T-shirts. We're going to have props at one point. Wigs. Wigs. One word, wigs. You can wear wigs. I don't care what you do, but no midriffs. We have lovely people taping us here. We've got a whole new staff. It's going to be great. Anyway, so I'm going to try not to touch your face during the whole thing because people will notice. Well, no one else is going to touch my face. I mean, seriously.

That's fair. All right. Well, listen, we got some big stories to break down. Scott Jack Dorsey looks like he might be staying at Twitter. What is happening? So today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the talks between the Dorsey side at Twitter and Elliott Management, which is Paul Singer, have come to an agreement to add two new board members and an independent third member. Two billion dollars in stock buybacks and also paid for part of which with an investment by Silverlake. I guess Egon Durbin at Silverlake, who's an interesting guy, is joining the board. It looks like he doesn't have to give up. Jack does not have to give up his half job. Scott, are you wrong here?

What happened? Did sensibility come? Did they suddenly meet Jack and really like him? What happened, Scott? Give me some news. Oh, Cara, we're right as rain on this one. This is... All right. No, no. I said that he might talk. Go ahead. First off, I doubt you have seen a company... I think Elliot announced this action 10 days ago.

I don't think you've ever seen three board seats at a company of this size awarded 10 days after Elliott files the proxy or issues a statement. So this is unprecedented. And I've been following this, as you can imagine, really closely. There wasn't a single article that basically said Jack should stay CEO. And so the board knew. We said this. It was over before it started. Three board seats, including one from Elliott, one from Silver Lake, a new one.

And I believe in the press release, it talks about them setting up a committee. And in that committee, in the charge or the description of the committee, they use the word succession. So this is peace with honor. But be clear. Jack Dorsey is now a dead man walking. You don't let three people on your board who have all agreed the CEO should be out in 10 days. You don't cancel your trip to Africa and decide, OK, I'm going to show these guys part time how awesome I am. He's done.

I mean, this is unprecedented. All right. So you're still sticking with that. You're sticking with he's going to be gone. Oh, he's already gone. They aren't singing here. It's already gone. He's the White Walk gone. They aren't singing here. It's already gone. He's the White Walkers.

I don't know what the term is, but this guy is – this is peace with honor. They're like, this needs to be Jack's idea, and you need to get to know Jack. Maybe you'll like him. They said, fine, we're going on the board, and they're going to – this is – I mean, literally, Kara, I've been following – at one point, I was actually considered an activist investor. I've never seen a company fold this fast. Ten days, three board seats? All right. That's unprecedented.

So they'd asked for four and you said you thought they'd get three, two, three. Interesting, Egan Durbin from Silver Lake. I know him a tiny bit. I know him actually pretty well. He operates out of Silicon Valley. He's super close to Silicon Valley types. What do you make of that? He gets on the board. They make a billion-dollar investment. Silver Lake is obviously seeing an opportunity.

Silver Lake's been in Dell. They've been in a whole bunch of different things. Some of them have worked out. They were in WME, pretty heavy. That did not go public. How do you look at that move? You know, I mean this. I've interviewed a few people on podcasts recently, and you immediately cut to the – you managed to get to insight by asking questions. That's the correct question, and it's Silver Lake. What is Silver Lake's involvement here? And it means the following. It means a floor has just been put on the stock because if the stock languages go down, Silverlake's going to take it private. And them getting a billion dollars into the company and becoming what will, they'll be one of their biggest shareholders. And they're doing it

under the auspices of a $2 billion reshare repurchase. But what it is is Silverlake wants a foot in the door of equity stake to take the company private should the stock not go up. Silverlake is not a public markets hedge fund. It's a company that takes big, you know, they go whale hunting for, they take the biggest, they do the biggest private equity deals in the world. This is the first step in a take private by Silver Lake should the stock continue to fall. Interesting. So what's the next steps? All right. What's the next step? You said, said that Jack was going to be out after 30 days, possibly not the case.

Or is this one of these – how do you look at it? This is not a victory for Jack is what you're saying. He's got a stay of execution, but eventually he's on the gurney in about 90 to 120 days max. You don't let three people on your board that showed up banging at the walls publicly stating everywhere this guy needs to be out. banging at the walls, publicly stating everywhere, this guy needs to be out. And then you say, well, I'm going to, my favorite statement by Jack next week was, I'm rethinking Africa given coronavirus and everything else, which is kind of putting a heavy lift on everything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He didn't even put that in there. He should have just said, I'm not going. Yeah, he just said, it was a mistaken judgment. I'm not going. But when you have

three people come on your board who are of this kind of caliber and they're going to be his largest shareholders, this is basically saying the lead director, Philip, I forget his last name, this is like, okay, you guys have won. You don't need to humiliate us. And so they're trying to position this as, you know, strikes strikes deal they got everything they wanted i mean they they weren't jack wasn't going to throw up his arms after 10 days and say i'm out but basically when you they're announcing a special committee to look at a variety of things including succession you don't announce a committee to look at succession unless the ceo's leaving all right so who are some of the name what what do you think what's gonna happen next

and then we're gonna get to to coronavirus. Speaking of coronavirus, as Jack mentioned, what happens next? The stock goes up because they're going to start a share repurchase. Basically, the next chapter of Twitter has now, the first page has been kind of written or open. This is a new company now with new ownership. And Jack and the new board members will pretend to be nice. And Les Jack, your idea around if Jack showed up Monday and said, I've been all wrong. Forgive me for my sins. I'm going to go full time. This is my plan. This is my product plan. I think maybe they give him some time. But I think in general, what they say is after the first or second board meeting, look, this needs—I mean, you know what they might do?

They might just start calling him in the morning and the afternoon and making his life miserable. Board members are allowed to do that. And keep in mind, he does have another job. So my guess is it'll be now I would say 60 to 90 days so he can claim it's his idea. Basically, what he's trying to do is figure out a way. Him and the lead director are trying to figure out a way, peace with honor, the war's over, and they want this to be their idea. And Jack's going to try and hold on for as long as he can such that it comes across as his idea. But be clear, this is new ownership, new board members, a private equity player in there. And again, we've just never seen a company give up three board seats in 10 days. I've never seen that before. Yeah, it's interesting to see who they're going to look at.

I was just thinking as I noticed Silver Lake, which I should have thought of. Silver Lake, of course, would come in here. This is – it's interesting. Egan Durbin is close to someone like Nikesh Arora who used to run ads at Google. He used to be president of Google. There's a whole bunch of people, obviously, people like Susan Wojcicki. You had a great list. You had a great list. Yeah, I thought your list was the most awesome. I just made that off the top of my head. There's all kinds of people that could go into this job. I don't think Adam Bain or Dick Costello are coming back, for sure. I just

put their name in there. But there's certainly a lot of people. And now with Silver Lake, there's a couple of people that are sort of, there's all kinds of people that are tight with them. And they're very ensconced into Silicon Valley royalty, I would say. They're right on Sand Hill Road. They have lovely lunches, just so you know. Do they? It's good to know. Yes, they do.

Yeah. And so it's an interesting gang to bring in here. And they definitely tend to cooperate with with the entrepreneurs like with michael dell and others but uh but they certainly they've been exposed they haven't made all the great moves i'll tell you the wmu one i think has been tough for them because they didn't go public um and dell has been a you know a real struggle um but it's has been a struggle i don't know much about it yeah over time i mean i think what i think it's it's they've had they've had ups and downs but they certainly have enormous amounts of money.

And Egan has – this is typical of Egan very much. He's kind of a – I don't want to use that term that everyone uses, a baller, but that's what he is. And it will be interesting, but he's super tight with Silicon Valley top notch. Anyway, we'll see. All right. So you are saying there will be a new CEO in 30 to 60 days unless Jack comes back with a plan. So to be fair, I mean, time goes fast, but this is, okay, we fold. You have the board seats, and we're going to put together a committee to look at the CEO, and we would like – Jack's been a good guy.

He's got a history here. We want this to be what I'd call a dignified exit. But there's just no way you let three adversarial – you give up three adversarial board seats and expect the CEO to stick around when their primary justification for getting those board seats was they need a new CEO. Yeah, it's going to be a tougher board. It's going to be a tougher board on here. You mean it's going to be – no, I would go even further than that.

It's going to be a board. Yeah, well, yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, I think a lot of them are very close to him and he, you know, like Brett Taylor from Salesforce knows. I still wouldn't rule out a purchase by someone. That's, you know what I mean? Like a Salesforce. And I think that'll be interesting. So that's an interesting question. And just to pause there for a second. So Salesforce is interesting, although his board, I think, basically said to Benioff, who obviously has just so much credibility with his board because it's just delivered in spades. And I actually know one of their board members, Sandy Robertson, who's just kind of this very high integrity, smart guy.

Anyway, but who else would it be, though? I'm having trouble figuring out. Somebody asked me that question. Very few people can buy it because of antitrust. None of the big companies. That's right. Amazon, none of the Chinese companies can buy's right. Antitrust. Amazon. None of the Chinese companies can buy it.

It's a very difficult purchase. Disney isn't going to buy it at this moment in time. So I think Salesforce is – there's others people have mentioned. I'm blanking. But none of the big ones for sure. And it's a big lift for someone. Well, right now, quite frankly, the odds on hands down Lee Dogg to buy this thing is silver-like. Yeah. Now.

Yep. Yep. Going private. Actually, it would solve a lot of problems for it. Right. It would. I agree. Anyway, interesting move.

Big, big, big move. Well, we'll see what happens, Scott. We'll see. I'm going to keep you on it to see if Jack Dorsey's there, if he finds Jesus. He often looks like Jesus, but we'll see if he suddenly leaves his job, things like that. We'll see where it goes. What did we say? We said board members within, did I say seven days?

Ten days. Okay. How many days has it been? Within ten days, but I'm just saying you said he'd be gone. He's not gone yet. We'll see if he outlasts you, Scott Galloway. So he's got a stay of execution, but it's looking ugly. All right.

So speaking of coronavirus, other reasons, which actually the ripple effects of coronavirus, not this move by Jack on Africa. You know, Southwest, we were supposed to be there this week. We were supposedly eating barbecue while you and I together wandering around being vetted by people. How dare that virus? COVID-19 is just really rippling through the economy. Everything canceled, all kinds of stuff. And especially the gig economy, including hospitality industry, Lyft and Uber drivers, Airbnb renters.

And we're going to look a little bit at how gig workers in general are being affected by COVID-19 and what companies that employ them are doing about it. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft committed they will continue to pay hourly contractors hourly wage if they're affected by COVID-19. Amazon hasn't made an official commitment yet, but they said in a statement they would be helping their hourly workers on their campus in Seattle and Bellevue. No word from Apple about they'll join this move.

So again, meanwhile, Uber this week's New York count of coronavirus includes the first Uber driver. Not a surprise. Uber announced it would be offering compensation to drivers affected by COVID-19. An Uber spokesman confirmed

the company already compensated five quarantine, but ultimately non-affected drivers in the UK and Mexico. Meanwhile, Senator Mark Warner sent letters to Uber, Postmates, Lyft, Instacart, DoorDash, and Grubhub urging them financial benefits, their army of gig workers. And of course, there's the bigger impact, which we'll talk about on the economy for this.

What do you think? Besides the fact that we're disappointed we're not going to be at South by Southwest, the economic impact is all over the place. And especially in this area where these companies which have benefited from gig workers, which you have talked about extensively, are now having to pay the price for that. Yeah, it's just amazing, isn't it? How much – the saying that keeps popping in my mind is that life isn't about what happens to you. It's how you react to what happens to you. It's how you react to what happens to you. And I think about just how much at least my mind or my viewpoint of this or my complexion or my mood has changed in the last just 72 hours. And how the world feels has changed in the last 72 hours. Because when we found out South by Southwest was canceled being, you know, I got all jonesed up and I called you and said, well, why don't we do

something in Austin anyways and be supportive of the local community? And both of us liked the idea, but we're like, okay, let's wait and see how this plans out. And as of this morning, you and I are not going anywhere. No. And it's just amazing how much it feels like in the last 72 hours, the fear, the concern, whatever you want to call it, has gone up about 1% an hour compounding. And it feels like the fear has doubled in the last three days. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think as you're getting more and more reports and more and more stories about how the Trump administration has made a mess of this and he's playing golf all weekend, which is probably better. Let's keep him on the golf links.

It's interesting because I was just thinking, at least in public, which is probably better. Let's keep them on the golf links. You know, it's interesting because I was just thinking, you know, at least in public, Pence has been reasonable. Like he's been trying his best. And every time he says something reasonable, the president says something stupid. Like it's really it's fascinating to be in his position because I feel like he's handling it like any public official, Republican or Democrat would, which is and so have the governors, which thank goodness for governors, including Jansley in Maryland, Larry Hogan, all kinds. He's a Republican. But this issue of like where – how analog vulnerable we are, especially as we have more and more gig economy workers, is really a fascinating moment in how we think about this and what we do. And you're right.

People are panicked. And, of course, you know, the whole CPAC thing that people that were at CPAC are close to the president have, you know, they've Matt Schlapp shook the hand of a coronavirus person who had coronavirus. And then immediately, relatively soon, shook the hand of President Trump and many others. And this guy was in the green room. I mean, just the repercussions are both kind of you can't write this stuff and at the same time disturbing. So first off, I just want to be recognized for my discipline and willpower to mention that Ted Cruz has been self-quarantined. And I'm not going to make a joke. I'm just not going to make a joke about that because of what's going on.

But there is, I mean, I love the line. I thought probably the best series or one of the best series the last 12 months was the series on Chernobyl from HBO. And the scientist who's credited with being sort of the adult in the room and kind of the hero, the protagonist of the story, has this great line. And that is, every lie is a debt incurred against the truth, and eventually that debt comes due. And I think about an administration that essentially just lies to people. It just says, okay, airtight, nothing to worry about. I understand this virus. And at some point, incompetence, constant turnover, something that is not aging well is two years ago.

It looks as if the administration cut about 80 percent of the global virus pandemic response within the CDC, cut the budgets there. When you have a lack of respect for your own institutions that you oversee, it just – and when you were talking about how these companies have responded, it's clear. It's really interesting. These companies are now the government, and they're now the adults in the room. The government over the weekend, we want action. We want leadership. The fact that, you know, South Korea is testing or was testing, I think, 10,000 people a day and nobody even knows how many were testing. We can't even seem to get the right answer. And then you have... That's because we didn't go along with the testing kits. We used our own. They were as typical. We didn't go along with the who... Oh, there's going

to be so many stories. So many stories are going to come out about that. And the question now is, are we Singapore where it immediately looks bad? And because of a combination of testing, tracking, and then self-quarantine, and also, let's be honest, the Singaporean people are very compliant. You know, it looks like they've got it largely under control. Or are we Italy, where just three weeks ago there were only 17 people, and now we have 17 million people being quarantined, and we're not sure. I mean, this is going to be so interesting, the limits, the tension between handling something like this and democracy, because this is one of those times where authoritarian rule looks like it's actually pretty—

Well, it's not authoritarian. They're just incompetent. That's really incompetent and selfish and trying to hide it because of the loving of the stock market. I think the stock market—I think the combination of him being a germaphobe, and I don't think we can stress how important that is, just doesn't want to face it. And then the second part, his obsession with the stock market as as a proxy you are right these companies these tech companies have become the government and they're the first to step out mcdonald's has not done so and others that have gig economy workers essentially and so these the they do have to step up along with governors in terms of governing this country which is is fascinating. This can't happen continually. The government has to step in and actually do its job.

But it's really interesting that they've stepped up. Did you pull up your phone? I mean we taped this a day before. It markets down 2,000 points. That shit is getting real. It is because of the gas prices and things like that. So what's the effect on the bottom line for speaking of which? These tech companies are going to take these costs on and not the government.

And then this stock market situation. What is your viewpoint here? Where does it go? Well, I mean, the honest answer is I don't know. I mean, if you look at what's just so interesting is, and you always relate it to your past, but so let me back up. These companies, in my opinion, the tech companies and these leaders are doing the right thing. And I think they're leaders. I think they're saying, all right, who's most vulnerable? Small and medium business, gig workers, kind of blue collar workers. And

what the government should have done over the weekend is something similar and announced some sort of... So monetary policy is no longer a weapon. Interest rates are so low, we're out of bullets. It's got to be some sort of fiscal policy. And what I mean by that is over the weekend, the president should have announced a policy such that every small and medium-sized business can get a 0% interest loan to make sure that the wheels are humming. Because we will get through this. I don't know if it's a month, I don't know if it's a year, but you want to make sure there's small and medium-sized businesses on the other side that are still alive. And they're the ones that is economically what you would refer to as the vulnerable population here. Sure is.

And we can't, cutting interest rates isn't going to do anything. What we would need to do is, you know, I don't, I forget if it was Katrina, but they literally at one point just started handing out prepaid credit cards or charge cards. And just, you've got to put some money or access to credit in the hands of, of, um, small business where this could get ugly is that, and I didn't really understand this until I read Andrew Ross Sorkin's book, too big to fail, that the thing that creates recessions barreling towards depressions is not the stock market. It's an absence of credit or basically when companies no longer can get credit. That's what causes depressions.

It's so important. Let me just say a friend of mine who's a big caterer in New York has had millions of dollars of business just taken away. And she was talking about like the iterations of her – she has 300 workers that she can't give any more hours to. And so she's doing everything to protect their salaries because they've worked continually. But think about that iteration. Hundreds of workers then can't work. And then that – the iteration, iteration, iteration all over the place. And this is a small business owner even if it's a big business.

And he's not going to pay bills, right? That's what you do and then you need credit to do that. And so that's going to iterate with small businesses also. Airlines will need relief from the government. Hotels, those are the most obvious ones, but it iterates everywhere. And especially as this economy has become more of a gig economy, it's really the government that has to step in and do what a long time ago Avanusa and I talked about is like, what is the healthcare benefits for gig workers?

What are, how do we, how do we define an employee anymore? And this is exactly the kind of thing that changes the attitudes towards that. So you don't, you have insurance for what happens. So it's a big,

it's a big deal. We're going to, we have one more before we have a friend of pivot coming on. But before that, Facebook removed Trump ads, misleading ads by president Trump's reelection campaign about the 2020 census. The Trump campaign released ads on a platform that said President Trump needs you to take the official 2020 congressional district census today. We need to hear from you in the most important election in history.

Campaign linked the census directly to the Trump campaign, a misrepresentation of an official government survey. A misrepresentation of an official government survey. The Census Bureau was supposed to begin the population survey until next week, which is also in the middle of this crisis. You wonder how they're going to hire people. Facebook said on Thursday that the Trump campaign's message violated its policy against interference in the census. Facebook bars the misrepresentation of dates, locations, times, and methods of census participation. Facebook said in a statement, quote, there are policies in place to prevent confusion around the official U.S. census,

and this is an example of those being enforced. You know, this is the right thing, but at the same time, they kept that Joe Biden video up. Like that, they're being attacked for that. Twitter said it was misrepresentative or manipulative or some word they put on the bottom where nobody sees it. So what do you think prompted them to take those ads? And they've been so lenient on other free speech. Well, that's the thing. I just don't know. It seems to me their terms of service are nearly impossible to understand the consistency around them. I don't, you know, I mean, every time the president speaks, it shows the inconsistency of their terms of service because he's still on Twitter. I never know what to expect, like who

they're going to boot off, who they're not. I don't understand. I don't understand their approach to it. I understand who makes these decisions. And that's part of the problem. And that is, even if it was a ham-handed policy, as long as it was consistent, it's like the best relationships, you'd rather be in a relationship with someone who is wrong. But as long as they're consistently wrong, you know what to expect. That's our relationships. There you go. There you go. You know, I'm inappropriate, but you're used to that. I'm used to it.

So you expect it. But with the terms of service around this stuff, you get the feeling it's a bunch of people, press people in a room going, okay, what do we do? And then whoever's the loudest voice gets that decision. They just haven't been able to establish anything resembling like a constitution around behavior or authority around what gets kicked out. At least that's my sense. Do you have a sense for what they're doing? Well well i think the sense is it's like a bridge too far they're just pushing for bridge too far and this group the trump group you know pushes it too far and then hopes they get through what you do is you do 20 shitty things like this and this is let

me just let me try to do this technically this is shitty um and and manipulative um uh and and lots of groups uh have been warning facebook around the disinformation and especially when it's coming from the presidents and the and the uh uh the the trump campaign but at first facebook declined to remove the campaign ads on the census you know what i mean like until they were alerted and so they do 20 shitty things and then 19 of them get to go through and that's that's the way these people are and this is what they're going to do. And Facebook is caught just playing defense the whole time instead of offense, which is what they should be doing. You know, the Biden – again, the Trump campaign was pushing out a very, very doctored video of Biden saying he supported Trump, which is insane.

And, you know, that idiot who works for him, Dan Scavino, was pushing it out. And then the Trump retweeted it. And it was clearly doctored. It just, you know, and again, Twitter did something, but it just labored it manipulative. I think there was something at the bottom, manipulated video, which what the hell is that? Just take it down. Like, it's kind of, it's fascinating. Yeah, but you're right. They don't have any standards, which is really irritating. And you need standards at this moment to be doing this in terms of what they're going to do. I don't even get it anymore.

I don't even understand it, what the game is here for them. Where are you today, Kara? I'm in New York. I'm in New York. Oh, you're in New York. And what's the – I'm just really curious. What's the mood like? I have to tell you the subway was packed.

I'm just really curious. What's the mood like? I have to tell you the subway was packed. The subway was packed even though the governor and I think the mayor were talking about don't go to work if you don't need to. I was wearing gloves. People were not wearing masks or anything like that. A couple of people were. So it seemed like a typical day on the subway to me.

People were out all day yesterday in New York in the park. It was a beautiful day. So it's interesting. I mean, it looked like restaurants were full. You know, I think people are – but I think everywhere you went, you could hear overheard people talking about coronavirus everywhere. And so were we, everyone. So I think people are super nervous, And I do think the business implications. I mean, I spent the weekend thinking about the code conference and all kinds of stuff, the iteration.

I canceled several speeches. You know, you and I are supposed to go somewhere in Europe relatively soon. And that, you know, who knows? Who knows what's going to happen there? I'm hoping this will all level out. That's really what the hope is. Yeah, we're all hoping it burns out fast. I mean, what you want, I was thinking about what you really want in government is these guys, the goal is you want to be accused at some point of overreacting.

Yep, exactly. To be accused of overreacting is one thing. To be accused of underacting is a crime as a government official. And that's Trump. And I think that's where they are now. They're going to be accused of underacting is a crime as a government official. And that's Trump. And I think that's where they are now. They're going to be accused of underreacting. There's just no getting around it. There's nothing here that feels like an overreaction. This is just how they are. They're just incompetent is really what it is. Just another example of incompetence. The other thing I was thinking about was, and this goes back to, and I think there's a, I don't know if it's a business lesson, but we talked about red envelope last week.

I remember this reminded me of in 2007, it's always this one-two punch. It's always a combination of peanut butter and chocolate disaster. Two things come from opposite or varying directions. One's typically economic. The other is some sort of exogenous impact. One's typically economic. The other is some sort of exogenous impact. When I read Envelope in 2008, the beginning of 2008, the dirty secret of retail is that, or especially retail, is that you lose money for 45 weeks a year. And then basically from Thanksgiving to Christmas, you make a ton of money and you hope to make it all back.

And so we had all of our gifts, all of our cashmere blankets and Lord of the Rings chess sets on a cargo ship. And there was a long shoreman strike in Long Beach, and we couldn't offload our products. So we had to go get and extend our line of credit to go buy more stuff to get ready for the Christmas season. And an analyst, a fixed income analyst at Wells Fargo, recently sort of saw the credit crisis coming and pulled our credit line. And 11 weeks later, we were Chapter 11. So an exogenous event and a lack of credit was sort of the one-two punch for what was a fairly, at the time, what felt like a fairly robust publicly traded company. And if you think about what's going on now, we obviously have this coronavirus.

But where you also have this exogenous shock of oil prices diving and potentially taking down the market, it's just couldn't have come at a worse time. And what's also really interesting about this is I remember I was born in an era where oil prices going down was good for us because it seeded power. It transferred power from the Gulf back to us. And now oil prices going down is actually a bad thing for our economy because we're a net exporter and the largest energy producer in the world right now. And what might be ground zero, if there is, I think we do plummet into something really dangerous economically or really historic. What probably will be the ground zero, just as it was subprime in 2008, is the high-yield market because 11% of all high-yield bonds are energy companies whose

cost of production is now probably above what they can sell their stuff for. So it's not, it's usually a one-two punch, and it feels like you can identify both these kind of fists of stone coming to the economy right now. They're coming in that way. And, you know, again, lastly, and then we're going to go to a break in a second. It is a question of truthfulness about this at the same time, what's happening. I mean I tweeted a lot this weekend about my mom who was getting terrible information from Fox News about everything. And my brother and I had to read her the riot act because she was like, oh, you can take the flu shot and it will be fine. Or it's not that big a deal. The media are overhyping it.ping it and oh i can go out and i'm like listen lady you know oh no she should my sense is you do what the cdc says the cdc summarized it perfectly i thought they said

if you're elderly or you have an underlying health vulnerability you should begin to self-quarantine well that was not being broadcast on fox news, which my mother watches. So it was she had like at least seven pieces of misinformation. It was really disturbing. And let me just tell you, if Rupert Murdoch makes my mom sick, he better be careful. That's all I have to say. Lucky. Lucky. Lucky better not get sick because you watch that frigging Fox News. I mean, it just was so weird. I mean, usually it's just irritating to listen to her. Now it's like, that's enough. That's plenty. There's something interesting there, though, and that is we, okay, so Fox and Rupert Murdoch, we immediately, you made the connection that

they're complicit and there'll be ramifications because traditional media companies can be held liable. Whereas we're talking about Twitter and Facebook, I think they do 100 times the damage around stuff in terms of misinformation. But the idea that they might actually be held liable if there's an increase in breakouts seems unthinkable. And the reality is it shouldn't be no different. They should have the same responsibilities as every other media company. Agreed. Also, Lucky Carney should be smarter, but here she is in the thrall of propaganda. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with a friend of Pivot, Aminatou Sow, when we get back. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. All right, we're back. We have a friend of Pivot in the studio. I call her Amina. She's a co-host of the brilliant podcast, Call Your Girlfriend, and is publishing her book with her partner there, Big Friendship, How We Keep Each Other Close, coming out this year. In July, Amina also used to work in tech, including at Google.

It was International Women's Day over the weekend, and Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the primers and was brilliant on Saturday Night Live. So let's talk about women and politics and leadership and social media. Welcome, Amina. How are you doing? Hi, Cara. Thanks for having me. No problem. You're in Los Angeles right now, correct? I am in Los Angeles right now. It's so early, but it's also a gorgeous day. I figure. It is actually very nice here. Anyway, so we have Scott on the phone also. Scott, say hello to Amina. Hi, Amina. Hi, Scott. Happy International Women's Day to you. I have such a question about that. Can we start there? Go ahead. You please. Go right ahead, Scott.

Okay, Amina. So International Women's Day, I don't want to say it bothers me, but there's something about it that really bothered me yesterday, and stories about being good to yourself. And can you be a mom and sexy at the same time? And as someone who was raised by a single mother, you know, and after my dad and my mom split, my dad immediately, who was less talented, went on to make, I think he was making $50,000 a year. And the only thing my mom could do is be a secretary at 10,000 a year. And my feeling is, if we're really going to have a woman's movement, it's not about honoring or celebrating. It's about paying them more fucking money. And to me, this soft, glossed over, hallmark channel holiday is missing the script, or it's missing the point that we need to economically empower women. Anyways, I'll stop there. Your turn.

Okay. I mean, wow. Wow. Scott Galloway, feminist. Who knew? Trust me, I am not a feminist. I am not a feminist. I believe in economic empowerment.

All right. Okay. Don't worry. It doesn't surprise me. Here's what, here's the deal, right? I think that International Women's Day is just like any of those Hallmark holidays as something that is just very muddled and at this point is very steeped in capitalism.

Like if you know the history of International Women's Day, it was proclaimed by the UN, I want to say in 1975, as a day to celebrate women's rights and world peace. And now it is just a shorthand for love yourself um you know malala's awesome and uh you know brands just giving you all sorts of messaging and so it means a lot and it doesn't mean anything i agree with you that the intent of international women's day is to talk about parity. And, you know, but I think that we live also in a world where that question for us today in 2020 is very, it looks very different

than it looked like for the women in 1975. And it looks very different than, you know, the first, when the Socialist Party of America started designating this day, like back in 1908. And I, you know, I think that like with all things, social movements are really fraught and that once capitalism comes into the question, it also just becomes a mess. I personally, I find International Women's Day and its current iteration like very offensive

because every day should be International Women's Day. And I think that I care less about cute hashtags and people posting the women that have inspired them than I care about the fact that we live in a country where violence against women is something that still happens on a routine basis. We live in a country where women do not get paid the same as men. And we live in a country where women are not represented

at the highest echelons of power at the same rates as men. And so, you know, it's like, it's one thing to bring awareness, but it's another thing to actually, like, change the fucking system. And, you know, I'm like, we've had decades of awareness. Can we actually do something about it? Well, I agree with you. I was happy, though, that my son Louis called me to wish me a happy International Women's Day. That was a nice feeling. At the same time—

It's always nice when Louis calls. Obviously, all of them are being considered for vice president. What do you make of this? And obviously, Elizabeth Warren did a great job on SNL this week. But what do you think has happened in this race? We're down to three white guys who are in the worst group for coronavirus having. What is your feeling on how that played itself out? And, of course, you had interviewed Hillary Clinton many times, had been a supporter of her in the last election. Where are we right now? I mean, I think that we are exactly where we have always been, a place where there is a very strong

glass ceiling for women. We're in a place where women's leadership is just not taken. We pay a lot of lip service to it, but we are seeing that it's not actually being paid attention to because the script the last time in 2016 was that a lot of people said they didn't like hillary clinton which i'm like you can fair voters can feel how they want to feel about it the thing that i i'm always fascinated by is when people say we want a woman not this woman um then what does that magical woman look like that everybody is okay with? And is it possible that it's actually not about individual women and it is more about the fact that this country is not ready to stomach the idea of a woman in charge? And I think that's a question that we should all be asking ourselves.

We started this election with many women running for president. And, you know, and much like International Women's Day, we made like a thing of it. It was, you know, there was that big Vogue story about it. Um, people keep saying that they're inspired and that they're empowered and we hear all of the words, but when push comes to shove, um, what are we seeing? We are seeing that like a woman's candidacy is not seen as a viable thing. And we, we, we heard the word electable over and over and over and over again when it came to Elizabeth Warren. And maybe the truth is that for women to be electable, people just have to elect

them. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a question or a thought around that, because if you look around the world, whether it's Thatcher or Merkel or even I don't want to I don't want to create an unattainable, you know, I don't I don't want to fall into the trap of saying, okay, all female leaders are just better and have higher character. On a balanced scorecard, I would bet, arguably, that there's just leaders. And then there's not great female leadership in Argentina, what have you. But the point is, there are leaders that have been democratically elected, female leaders in other Western nations. And we can't seem to wrap our heads around it. When you describe a female candidate

or you describe the attributes of a candidate and then you put the term female on them, they usually go down three to six points, which would swing almost any election. Where does it, why is that in the U.S.? If you reverse engineer, where did that start in America, our ability that has resulted

and we handicap female candidates by three to six points at the polls. What is the ground zero of this? I mean, I don't know that I, you know, that we can diagnose a ground zero that goes just beyond the fact that our country is built on a very, you know, there is an undercurrent of like misogyny and how this country is run. And I think that that happens by design, but I think that it's also something that

a lot of people are really happy to talk about the fact that, you know, maybe that it's 2020 and maybe we have, they're excited about women running, but the truth is that we don't, we just don't have a good model for it. You like, you point to countries like Germany and England, but the truth is that even countries that are, I would say that Americans usually turn their nose down to have had very strong female leadership. If you go to Pakistan, if you go to Liberia, if you go to many

other countries that are generally seen as third world countries, they have also accepted the fact that having women in leadership is a normal fact of life. And so I think that in American politics and in American business, it can't surprise you that we don't have female leaders in politics if we don't see them in business, if we don't see them in tech, if we don't see them in entertainment. The problem is not a problem of one industry. It's also not a problem of a pipeline as people talk about all the time that's simply not true it is just the truth that we um we have accepted for now that we will let women get as far as is as socially acceptable and that it takes someone extraordinarily exceptional to break that mold and that person has not um that person is not in our consciousness yet well Now, we talk about, this is a tech and media show. Who do you want to call out in that regard?

Why does it, it's the same in tech, and it's gotten worse, as you know. You've worked in tech. And then the top 10 podcasts in 2019 are all hosted by men. I mean, and you have a very popular podcast. Except for the podcast of the year. Yeah, except for that. Well, it's like, who do you not call out, right? Like, tech is actually a really good example.

There was a big push when I was in Silicon Valley a couple of years ago where people, you know, started paying a lot of lip service to the fact that we were tracking these numbers. Just like, great, we are tracking the representation. One year, two years, three years, 10 years, the numbers haven't changed. And in some cases they've gotten worse.

So what is the point of tracking if, you know, we say that we are an industry that cares about data, that cares about facts, that is built on engineering and engineering cannot fix this problem. I was like, what does that say about what it is that we're actually doing by just tracking these numbers? So what does it say? I mean, I think it says that tech and all of America is not ready to have a reckoning with the fact that it's honestly at this point, I would say embarrassing. We are this, you know, I'm like, we're living in 2020. We are living in the future that we were all told we would live in. And very few things have changed when it comes to what is going on for women in leadership.

So is there any solutions you have? I mean, are you making solutions in your book, This Big Friendship, which is about women's friendship? Yeah, I mean, the solution that I have always looked to is, you know, I think that like for women and for other marginalized people is that we have to build our own power because we are not going to be invited to power. Like I really believe in building bridges horizontally. I believe in this idea called shine theory that is really about, you know, it is about building your own power and instead of hoarding power the way that like the traditional system does

is about making sure that you give it to other people. Because, you know, I think that at the end of the day, you know, there is a world in which you can have it like in Europe where there is like a quota system, you know, where you say, okay, all boards have to have like a third female leadership. All industries have to do like the government just steps in and says, this is what we have to do.

Because if we leave people to their own devices, it is not going to happen. Or I think that some of us are playing the long game and really believing that, you know, over generations it will change. But the change is very slow. Yeah, absolutely. Amina, thank generations it will change, but the change is very slow. Yeah, absolutely. Amina, thank you so much for coming on the show and have a great time in Los Angeles. Amina's book coming out is called Big Friendship, How We Keep Each Other Close, and her fantastic podcast is called Call Your Girlfriend, which is what I just did. Thank you, Amina. Thank you so much.

All right, Scott, do you feel emboldened now? Do you feel good about that? So actually, Karen, I wanted to say this or I would have liked to say it when Amina. Thank you so much. All right, Scott, do you feel emboldened now? Do you feel good about that? So actually, Karen, I wanted to say this, or I would have liked to say it when Amina was on the phone. I do think, so I love the Bill Clinton statement, there's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America. And capitalism is definitely, Amina brought up capitalism as it relates to gender balance. And I do think it's happening slowly. And I think, you know where I think it starts? I think it starts in the boardroom

because the board tends, people just have a tendency to envision people in leadership roles that are like them. And whether they want to admit it or not, that's typically where they go just psychologically. And I've seen it happen over and over on nominating committees and boards where we have to pick a CEO and there has slowly but surely been over the last 10 years and in the last 24

months, it's accelerated an intolerance for all-male boards and I'm not proud to say this, but I've been on several of them and now what's happening and this is great is that a lot of institutional investors ranging from CalPERS to Ontario Teachers to I think it's even BlackRock has said, we're not buying stock in any company that has a board that's not diverse. Diverse, yeah. It's not just women. It's not just women, by the way.

It's all kinds of diversity. It's not just women. It's all kinds of diversity. Yeah, but my point is it's happening too late. It's happening not as fast as we would like, but it is happening. And I've seen more momentum around it in the last 24 months than I've seen in the previous 10 years. All right. But I would like it to be legislated at this point because it's getting ridiculous.

Anyway, but before we go – and by the way, Bill Clinton, next – this week his fail is on this video with this documentary with Hillary Clinton where he – Oh, did you see that? The press loved it. I didn't see it. You were not a fan. I did not like his apology to Monica Lewinsky, who I think is a wonderful person, and I just think he's just still living in the denial stage of very bad behavior by Bill Clinton. Anyway—

Didn't they both apologize, though? Weren't they both involved in it? Sort of. It's literally the worst apologies on the planet. I'm sorry. I know you're not supposed to judge apologies, but in this case, it's pretty bad, and it's a long time taking too long. Anyway, it should have happened a long time ago.

Anyway, before we go, Scott, we're not going to end on a bad note. We're going to end on a good note. You have a new podcast. That's right. I'm Dr. Phil, you're Oprah. I owe everything to you, but we'll soon leave you and forget you and just send you a Christmas card. I don't want a Christmas card. Flowers on International Women's Day. Maybe a certificate

to a spa, because isn't that what all women really want out of life? Listen to me. As usual, you're distasteful and offensive, which is why I like you. Listen, you have a new podcast I want. It's called Prof G. We're going to play the promo for your podcast, Prof G,

because if you can't get enough Scott, here is some more Scott. All right, Scott, we're going to bang out the Prof G podcast promo. Take it away. Okay, no problem. Let's do it. Okay.

That's right, bitches. The dog has a pod. You know, I don't know if we want to call people bitches and not sure people know who the dog is either. No, no. Okay. No problem. No problem. Hi, everyone. This is Scott Gallow know who the dog is either. Okay. No problem. No problem.

Hi, everyone. This is Scott Galloway, the Prop G Podcast. What is a podcast? They suck, but the dog's pod sucks less. You know, I don't know about the negative angle. Let's try positive. Four words to describe the Prop G Podcast. The first and second, Shama and Lama.

The third and fourth, Ding and Dong. Show up for Prop G. That was positive. Not sure that made any sense, though. Got it, got it. Okay, okay. All right. Pull it together. My name is Scott Galloway. I'm a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business. I've taught over 4,700 students, served on 12 boards, started nine businesses. Some of them worked, some of them haven't. I want you to be successful professionally and personally. Every week, we're going to take an unfiltered, full-body contact, no mercy, no malice, view of the business world and what can be learned. Show up to Prof G.

We're going to have office hours, expert interviews. Prof G launches on March 19th. You heard it, D-Day. Well, this is Dog Day, March 19th. Show up, the Prop G podcast. Oh, my God. Really? What do you think, Kara?

You've created a monster. This is your fault. It is my fault. It is my fault. I wish I had a time machine. I'd go back to DLD and just leave and go get some, like, German food somewhere. If you could turn back time, Kara.

If I could turn back time. That was a totally offensive promo. Then I think it'll work. Yeah, really. I have gone full narcissist. I'm like, literally,

I'm, even I'm, I'm sick of me. Because you want to be invisible and rich as if, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah,

right. Okay, Scott, everybody should sign up for this. It's Prof G, Office Hours with Scott Galloway, Shama Lama, friggin' ding dong. Anyway, Scott, everybody should sign up for this. It's Prof G Office Hours with Scott Galloway. Shama Lama friggin' ding dong.

Anyway, Scott, read us out. We love your questions. If you have a question about a story you're hearing in the news, email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Now, Scott. Bring us home? Okay. Bring us home. So today's producer is Rebecca Sinanis.

Our executive producer is Erica Anderson. And special thanks to Drew Burrows and Rebecca Castro. If you like what you heard, please sign up, download, send us an email. And again, remember, life isn't about what happens to you. It's about how you react to what happens to you. 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.

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