Pivot - Uber's IPO and, more importantly, Game of Thrones

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

Kara and Scott talk about Disney breaking into the content streaming business, the Uber IPO and, yes, Game of Thrones. Facebook actually gets a win this week for bringing on their first African American woman as a board member (but will she hold Zuckerberg to account?). YouTube very failed at getting accurate information on the burning of the Notre Dame cathedral. Prediction: the unicorn-class is the big loser of this year... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Kara Swisher, back in San Francisco. And this is Scott Galloway. I'm i'm kara swisher back in san francisco and this is scott galloway i'm in my kitchen in san francisco so here we are nice nice yeah all right what are we talking about this week there's so much so much there's so much i'm here to see a lot of moguls this week i'm visiting i'm on my mogul fest this week so i have a lot to i'll have a lot more next week when i'm done talking to all of them i'm talking to pretty much all of them um but big stories this week, I think. I talked this morning to the BBC about the Disney, about Netflix results, which were better than Wall Street expected,

but a lot of worries in their stock went down because of a number of things, including possibly slowing subscribers, the competition from Disney, which is selling a new service that is pretty much half price of the best, the most popular Netflix offering. And then, you know, movement by Apple in the space. So just thoughts on this, on the Disney streaming service. So this is really, first off, their stock's very volatile because monopolies hate it when there might be another player. And Netflix kind of was becoming the first company other than Amazon that was achieving sort of this monopoly-like status where they had access to such incredibly cheap capital where they were able basically to crush the competition because the marketplace seemed to have stopped evaluating them on the traditional metrics they apply to any other media firm. They were now valuing them solely on subscriber growth. And now that they have a viable competitor,

everyone's sort of freaking out about whether or not, you know, what it means for Netflix. Everyone's trying to figure it out. The Disney Plus, Hulu, and what's the third one? ESPN Plus is really fascinating. It's taken a long time. it's taken a long time. It's taken a lot. It's like years now that Netflix has been catching the money and sending it to Hollywood. Billions and billions in content deals that they've been doing with big names.

They've been snatching Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, all kinds of people. Yeah, and it's tough because they have to. And I think Bob Iger is one of the few people that could do this. And Disney is one of the few companies that has the capital in the content library to be a viable competitor to Netflix. But what they really had to do, which is difficult, is start pulling stuff from Netflix, which in the short term will hit their revenues. And unfortunately, the majority of companies have investors that get very used to this thing called profits and damage you or hit you pretty hard when your profits go down, which they likely will for Disney in the short run as it starts to pull its content from folks who are paying them,

including Netflix. The interesting thing here, one of the interesting things here, is that what I think they should have done, what I think they should have done is offered one grand bargain package. And I want to come back to that because I have a bit of a rant on it. But how are people responding? What's kind of the word on the street in terms of— Well, a couple things.

One, that it's taken so long for these guys. I mean, Netflix has been doing this. Remember when Jeff Bukas called them, I think, Lithuanians? The Albanian army. Yeah, right. They made fun of them. And then they started really spending money and pulling in talent, both them and Amazon,

but Netflix to a greater degree. They have so many offerings too. They funded so many shows. And just recently, the bloom has been a little off the rose when they started canceling things, like One Day at a Time, which was super popular. They were being much more inclusive, much more diverse.

So Hollywood was loving the money and everything else, including Disney, who was getting money from fees, from getting these shows on the air, not the original shows. But as Netflix started to do original shows, I think everyone was like, wow, look at them. They're not just like a data service, essentially, although they have plenty of data. So everyone was sort of in love with this idea. And I thought it was super interesting. And they were too expensive to buy. Like they're too now to, you know, Yahoo was looking at them at one point, certainly Amazon would have, there's all kinds of companies that could have looked at them. And so, you know, people are sort of like, is this going to be it finally that Disney and Apple and others awaken? Or will it be the same thing where Disney's tried things like coming

into the internet and pretty much failed many years ago in a search kind of way. They were trying to do a version of Yahoo. And then, you know, Apple is not known for content. It's known for devices. And it tried a few shows out that didn't work. But now they, you know, they're grabbing Oprah and Steven Spielberg and again, not a young demo and Reese Witherspoon and some others. So, you know, it's they're actually making some moves that are significant, I guess, so people are nervous for Netflix. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating. The thing that—what I find most interesting about this is the pricing.

And that is—and this is where I think they messed up. And that is, rather than sort of this grand bargain, big singular offering similar to what Netflix does, they've attempted to segment the marketplace. And that is they said, OK, there's sports people, ESPN Plus. There's adult. That's going to be adult content. That's going to be Hulu. And then we watch future societies or dystopian societies do terrible things to the Gilmore Girl. watch future societies or dystopian societies do terrible things to the Gilmore girl. And then there's a Disney Plus, which is going to be kind of this great family offering. And if you look at

sort of, I think Disney is one of the last of the Mohicans, and that is it practices traditional brand management. And then it says, okay, where are different pockets we can segment with a more specific offering and take advantage of any excess income or pricing power there rather than one just big singular offering? And I think what you've seen, you saw from 1945 to 1995 with the introduction of Google, is that the companies that added the most shareholder value were these multi-brand conglomerates or what we refer to in brand strategy as a house of brands. brand conglomerates or what we refer to in brand strategy as a house of brands. So P&G, Unilever, General Motors with Buick, Pontiac, Cadillac for your boss, right? And they segmented different marketplaces and they just printed money. And I would argue over the last 20 years that the majority of the companies that have added extraordinary shareholder value aren't houses of brand, but branded houses because Say that again, slowly, please.

Sure. So the companies now that have added the most shareholder value over the last 20 years have not been houses of brands, but branded houses. So a Google, right? An Apple, where they basically put everything under kind of one brand. They've said, consumers are busy. We're going to be the brand that means something amazing, innovation and search or innovation and tech hardware. And everything's going to come under one umbrella. And we might give up some revenue. Maybe we could charge a little bit more for this. Maybe we would be more appealing with a sub-brand. But we're going to practice safe sex, and we're not going to propagate all these new brands, which ultimately ends up like General Motors, where they have to kill Pontiac and Hummer because brands are just so expensive to kind of care and maintain for. And I think this is where Disney may have

messed up. And I do think it's going to be hugely successful. But I thought the gangster move here for Iger would have been to have one incredible offering. Just call it Disney Flicks. So all of them. All of it. Sports, kids, adult programming. Oh, and by the way. So Disney Flicks with an X just to be an asshole, that kind of thing? Something like that, yeah. And then—actually, that's not very Disney-esque. And then even stuff like, okay, there is the majority of America that goes to Disney parks, but Disney Prime members get to go on their own days where it's less crowded.

The best cabins are on Disney cruises. They could have done so many interesting things and basically made it such that no household in America couldn't pay the $29, $39, $49 a month if they have kids. I think that was the way to go. But instead they said, okay, let's try and figure out the nuance. Let's manage a series of brands. And what they failed to realize is that the primary vehicle for creating that nuance and that differentiation between Pontiac, between Buick, between Tide, between Gain Detergent, was this incredibly powerful vehicle and cost-effective vehicle called broadcast television or ad-supported television. But the problem is nobody that has any

disposable income now is watching ad-supported media because they're all watching Netflix or they're basically listening to podcasts like ours or they're fast-forwarding through stuff. And I think Disney has kind of missed the boat here. I think the opportunity was for a much bigger offering, and they're reverting to this reflex muscle memory of traditional brand management, not recognizing that the world has changed. I see. That's interesting.

It's interesting. Has Bob listened to you on any of these things? That wasn't much of a rant. Usually you're screaming. No, no. I think Bob Iger, I think that guy is incredible. And I think his wife, Willow Bay, a Stern grad, by the way, is an incredibly impressive person. I think this guy, I'm really pulling for Bob. I think, by the way, I think it's going to be an incredible offering. But think about what they could do with this. And you want to talk about price discrimination. How much would, I mean, the reality is, the sad reality is where you want to go in business is you want to go to the top 10 or even the top 1% because those are the folks that are aggregating all the incremental disposable income, right? What do you think the million wealthiest households in America would pay for the next episode of Star Wars seven days early

in their house, streamed into their house. I don't know. We've talked about that before. I talked about that years ago, the idea. They've never done it. They've got all kinds of issues. But it's coming, though, because it used to be that the theater release was the primary source of income.

This year, Netflix will do more revenue than the entire domestic box office. I would like to get Endgame right now. Right now. I want Endgame right now. I watched the Infinity Stones the other night, and then I was like, I'd like Endgame now. I'm ready for it. I understand everything. I followed along and it's in my head for the moment. I would have immediately liked to pay and I would have paid 50 bucks for my kids to watch it with me, which was just the one movie. What's interesting is that they, you know,

Disney did lose, you know, Shonda Rhimes. That was a big star for them, right? And she went over to Netflix. So that must have like, I wonder why they didn't try to keep her with this. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating. But Disney is really, it's so nice to see them do this because there's very few people

that are in a position to take on Netflix. And I think this is going to result in more revenue being pushed into some of the great jobs that the entertainment industry supports. I just think competition is going to be great. It's good for the content creators. It's definitely good. It's going to be money everywhere, like all this money from Netflix, Apple, Amazon.

We should make a movie, I think, at this point so that we can get some money and just have a bidding war go on between all of them. What do you think? I'm in, but I thought we were Cagney and Lacey. I thought we were— Well, yeah, that's true. were well yeah that's true we could do that a new version 80s crime drama internet mysteries internet mysteries there's not that many like what the hell is going on with jack dorsey for example um he appeared yesterday at uh at the ted conference uh which was not not the most um difficult interview for him, as you might imagine.

But he was there. So is TED is going on? I didn't know about that. TED is happening? TED, yeah, I know. TED, the TED conference. Got it. And what did he have to say?

Anything interesting? Absolutely nothing. Like, I don't know, that he was going to be focused on topics of interest versus people. I think that was the takeaway. I mean, it was very, it was quite a bit of a tongue bath for him. But it was mostly the topics he's going to focus.

And that's how he's going to fix the situation. I'm like, Donald Trump owns Twitter now, my friend. So, and you made it. So how do you feel about that? That would be my first question. And then I'd be like, what's going on with the hat? But I wouldn't ask that. When you see people being interviewed, do you want to rush the stage and say,

I would do such a better job interviewing this bozo? Oh, my God. This is what I almost yelled the other day. I was in this interview. I literally was almost stood up and yelled, ask the fucking question. Like, ask the question. Like, it was like one of those roundup questions.

I was like, ask the fucking question. Ask, question like what's going on like like if i had jack dorsey in the train he's never going to do with me because he only is going to meet me on crazy twitter is like what is going on like that would be my like what is going on all the people the world want to know what the hell is going on like with you know anyway i just thank you yes i do i get very frustrated because i think reporters tend to like come things backwards they don't want to be rude when they're physically in the same space as someone um and so they tend that doesn't bother you that doesn't bother you yes some people say it bothers me like crazy i literally want to jump up and i tend to jump up

and ask a question and then they always go uh-oh when they see me at the at the microphone i like it stay that way don't ubu don't go change me i will be listen uber ipo i'm gonna see dar this yeah coaster shahi he's the ceo and i'm seeing the lift guys too but um so what do you think of this the filings so first off i mean the two words you're hearing more you're hearing the same two words over and over in every lift, excuse me, in every IPO planning meeting at Uber. And those two words are fucking lift. I mean, it literally it's like imagine, you know, the opening ceremonies of every Olympics. ceremonies of every Olympics. I don't know when in 92, when Muhammad Ali with his Parkinson's in full bloom, got up there and lit the, lit the, um, the Olympic flame. One of the great moments in sport history, a guy who'd had his metal stripped from him for refusing to, to register

for the draft. When you had in Barcelona, that, that incredible Archer, basically they take the camera outside the stadium and they're like, where's the camera going? And then all of a sudden they zoom in on this incredibly ripped, gorgeous Spaniard and he picks up a bow and arrow and you're like, what the fuck is he going to do with that? And then he reaches it into the sky, pulls the bow back and boom, shoots this inflamed arrow into the circle and they light the flame. And it just sort of sets the tone for the entire Olympics. Well, the Lyft IPO is basically George Costanza, like, throwing up for the opening ceremonies. Don't tell them that. It has literally—it's contaminated the entire—all the unicorns, the unicorn class here.

Yeah, Ben is going up to the Olympics. Yeah, they should have gotten together and said, whatever we do, we can't let Lyft go out first. Well, they had to go out first, though. You think otherwise they'd get squashed? Yeah. Wait, let's revisit our prediction. Our prediction, $100 opening day. We didn't get there. It got to $90, and we said it would be $50 within six months.

And what's it closed at today? Is it in the high 50s or what's it? Anyways, but back to the Uber IPO. Let me check my mobile device on that. You have one of those? Is it in the high 50s or what's it? Anyways, but back to the Uber IPO. Okay, so. Let me check my mobile device on that. You have one of those? Okay. Wait, hold on.

Let me check my Motorola. So the Uber, Lyft is no Uber, and Uber is a much different company than Lyft. So you have. 58, 58. There you go. And by the way, that will be its new all-time low, and looking forward, that will be its all-time high. It will never see that number again. Look out below.

Low is 55, right? Yeah, that will seem like the salad days in about 30, 60, 180 days. Anyways, by the way, I just got to notice, all these analysts. Oh, it's at its low. No, it's at its lows. It was at the highest. All these analysts keep going on saying they don't understand the unicorn class and these terms like disruption.

No one wants to talk about their numbers because the stock's going to 30 about the time. Aswath, the motor, and who's the god of valuation actually says, okay, this company is not worth 30 bucks, much less 20 bucks. Anyways, let's... I want Uber, my friend. Uber, okay, Uber.

11 billion, $11 billion, 2 billion in losses. This is a difficult business. Ride hailing is a really shitty business. Uber has some real assets, right? They might have this all kind of elusive so far flywheel effect in ride hailing. And that is they have so much trust. It's such an incredible brand. They do such an incredible job that they're able to launch adjacent businesses.

And Uber Eats looks like it might be a really great business, right? Yeah, because the others, Grubhub and the others are like shaking their door dash. They're probably done. Uber Eats, I'm just hearing it everywhere and it seems like they do a great job. It's growing really fast. They're talking about getting into logistics, which would be interesting. They all threaten around the economics that what happens when autonomous comes. I think that's like Jeff Bezos talking about drones. I think it's a giant head fake. I don't think it ever really.

So it's food delivery. That's the beeswax, right? So right now, Raymond James just estimated the total takeout market in the U.S. is from the Wall Street Journal will reach 269 billion this year with online penetration rates rising from under 7% this year to 30%.

Now, I've talked to a lot of restaurant owners in my area. I went to Pickup Takeout the other day, which apparently is like, you know, showing up with like a horse and buggy for restaurants. But he was like, it's all Uber Eats and DoorDash. DoorDash, he was definitely talking about DoorDash. He likes them. He liked them better. But he definitely was like, look, it's even eating out or eating the business,

the inside the restaurant business too. Because it's essentially taken what's happened in New York, which was all delivery to everywhere. To everywhere. Yeah. It was interesting. It was an interesting discussion as I waited for my pizza to be made. And it was reported that Dara, they offered Dara $100 dollars if he can maintain a valuation of 120 billion dollars for 90 days. And I would

argue if he can do that, he deserves a billion dollars. What's he going to do? Well, that's the thing. These guys have to convince their investors to enter into a consensual hallucination with them that Uber is worth more than, get this, at $120 billion, Delta, American Airlines, Ford Motors, Mattson Shipping, and let's throw in JetBlue. And we still don't have the value of what they've asked DARA to convince the marketplace Uber is worth. So Lyft, shitty business.

Uber, at these current valuations that they're discussing, is an overvalued business, but it's still a juggernaut. I mean... Right. So it's $11 billion in revenue. $11 billion in revenue, but...'s still a juggernaut. I mean, so it's 11 billion in revenue, 11 billion in revenue. But and I hate to fall back on this term because it's amorphous and reflex memory when people are trying to find reasons to justify an irrational valuation. But the Uber brand is probably one of the most important brands in the global wealthier affluent

class globally. We're soaking up again all the disposable income because it's probably the first and the last brand you interact with when you're on the road. So it's literally the first and last company I interact with when I'm in any foreign city and they do a great job. So the opportunities for them to get into adjacent businesses, the fact that they're going to have all this data on the global wealthy about commerce, about your traffic, start serving you ads. Hey, about commerce, about your traffic. Start serving you ads. Hey, you're early at the airport.

Here's a $10 certificate or something at the duty-free here at Heathrow. They're just going to – there's a lot of places that Uber could go. And the fact that they've been able to execute against that with Uber Eats shows that this is a management team that knows how to take advantage of this shitty but enormous business that's established, unbelievable consumer trust, unbelievable brand equity. Well, there's issues around, come on. I mean, you're being like a big, like pretending things don't exist. They've got issues around drivers. I get dozens and dozens of driver stuff and I talk to them a lot. It's just,

it's on the backs of other people's work, essentially, what they're doing. And then meanwhile, not just them, but like Google here, which owned 5% of Uber. They've been invested for a long time, which I think they invested like $250 million, and sat quietly while all the crap was going down. What's going down? They're going to make about $5 billion. They're going to make—Google itself is going to do really well in this thing it's all the same people that own these companies yes

Google particularly which is really interesting and they also get a lot of money from maps and things like that and pay, Google pay and stuff like that it's an interesting situation of who's going to benefit here, but it's definitely not the drivers.

I mean, let's be honest. They're just getting screwed, essentially. In this case, the investors will, especially taking this big flyer. You're talking about making everyone just believe, you know, Dara will be paid a lot of money for this if he gets them to believe and does jazz hands for them. Jazz hands. I love that.

That's what they should call this entire unicorn class IPO strategy, jazz hands. That's awesome. Jazz hands. That's our movie, jazz hands. I'm going to call it jazz hands. That Bob Fosse movie, I'm going to go see it. All right, we're going to take a quick break,

and when we get back, we're going to do wins and fails and predictions with Scott Galloway and I on Pivot. predictions with Scott Galloway and I on Pivot. 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. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure

that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face

is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time.

So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. All right, back to our show. I'm here with Scott Galloway. He is in New York. I am in San Francisco. We are talking about jazz hands, which is, by the way, I want to see that Bob Fosse movie that they made. Apparently he wasn't a very nice man. Did you see all that jazz with Roy Scheider?

Yes, but this is a new one with Sam Rockwell and what's her name? The actress, she's great. Michelle Williams. Michelle Williams. Jessica Lange played that role in the 80s. I love Jessica Lange. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Great actress.

Do you watch her in all those Ryan Murphy things? By the way, he's working for Netflix now. Do you watch the horror, whatever? I don't. I'm all about, I'm basically watching, I'm watching one thing right now. I'm not interested in my kids. I'm not interested in work. I am interested in the King of the North. And winter has come, Cara.

That's it. I'm literally, like, I was part of an intervention on a guy who was addicted to heroin. And he basically listened to everybody and he said, I love everyone here. I have a great life. I choose heroin. And he walked out of the room. Well, you know what? I choose winter. I choose.

I am putting everything in my life aside. I'm going to rewatch every episode before. I can't stop thinking about it. Let me give you some information. Both my children are hooked on it. Hooked. I can't believe I let them watch it. I mean, I'm kind of—

Okay, quick trivia question. But both of them are hooked on it, and Elon Musk loves it. I'm just saying. Everybody's watching. I did not watch it. I do not care about King. I'm literally jealous you have so much amazing viewing ahead of you. Okay, so quick trivia question back to big tech. Is Jeff Bezos Jon Snow?

Hold on. Is he Jon Snow? Is he Cersei? Is he the Night King? Or is he the Prince of Dorne? Which one is Jeff Bezos? Don't say Prince of Dorne. He got his head crushed.

That's when I stopped watching that show. Let me, I was like, no, that was a handsome man. You crushed his head and I was not expecting it. I'm now disgusted. All right.

So I would say the, the, the, the, the night king, the, the, not the king of the north.

The night king. Yeah. That's very good. I said Cersei, but he's the night king cause he's coming for all the living. Cersei? It's not Cersei. He's the night king. He. The night king, yeah. That's very good. I said Cersei, but he's the night king because he's coming for all the living. Cersei? He's not Cersei. He's the night king.

He's the night king, yeah. He's the night king. Because he's coming for all the living. I thought that was really clever. I like the night king. I think the night king is misunderstood. It's amazing. Anyway, wins and fails.

Win, win, win, win, win. Go ahead. Facebook nominated its first African-American woman to be on the board, Peggy Alford. She's a big executive at PayPal and quite an impressive person. She left to do a little work at the Chan Zuckerberg, I think, foundation. This was a great thing because there's only six black women who are senior management executives in the U.S., which is 1% of that management layer. And Facebook employs hardly any women of color at the company.

It's really a small amount of its enormous U.S. workforce. But that said, two people left, Reed Hastings and Erskine Bowles. I think Erskine aged out and Reed did not. I think those are the two big critics of Mark Zuckerberg on that board. So I'm hoping Peggy Alford, you know, puts them through his paces, but I don't know. She's so linked to them. I doubt that's going to be happening. Anybody who gets on a board like Facebook is so grateful and sort of excited to be there. They're not going to show up and start

kicking ass and taking names. And I, again, I think it's great for the reasons you mentioned that she's on the board, but I feel like it's another illusionist trick. At the end of the day, Erskine Bowles and Reed Hastings, I think sort of the last vestiges of anything resembling a conscience has left the board. And so it's— Yeah, I had heard they were the ones that were really drumming it into Mark in terms of progress. Yeah, well, Ken Chanel is on the board. He's a very principled, high-character person.

Hopefully he's in there. But at the end of the day, there's only one thing the board can do in a two-class shareholder company, and the only thing they can do is all hold hands. Nothing. I'll sit around the fire, hold hands, and agree, and send them a letter publicly saying, you need to resign your CEO.

I agree. Never. But otherwise they're, they're not, they're not a board. They're an advisory board. I've served on two class shareholder companies. We kind of show up and suggest and hope and beg that the CEO does stuff, but you don't really have any power. You don't stamp your feet. Oh, there you go. Disappointed. Why don't you stamp your feet? What do you want to be on that board? What is that? $25,000 a year or whatever the hell though. I know that a hundred, I? What do you want to be on that board? What is that, $25,000 a year or whatever the hell? Boards pay a lot more than that. A couple hundred, those.

I know that, a hundred. I know. I've been asked to be on boards. Especially public company boards. I told you, the one I was at, they called me if I wanted to be interested, was the one who owns Taco Bell. And why didn't you go on the board?

Because I don't eat Taco Bell. Why would I go on a board of food I think is awful? Like, come on. They wanted a digitally oriented person. It's a waste of my time. And I don't want to be on that particular board. And I just, I think I'd be just difficult. I just recently was asked to be on a board

of a media organization that I like a lot. So I may, it's an advisory kind of thing. I don't mind those things. I just rant. But I'm not a good, I'd be a terrible board member. I would sneak around and find out what was actually going on. And then I'd do a big reveal in a board meeting. You'd be the journalist.

So you say, actually, according to my sources. Investigative journalism of the board. Yeah, that's probably not who you want. I'd love to be on the Facebook board. If he asked me, I would say, yes, I don't care about, yes, ma'am. That's what I would say. That doesn't instill a lot of trust and security in the board board. If he asked me, I would say, yes, I don't care about, yes, ma'am. That's what I would say. That doesn't instill a lot of trust and security in the boardroom. So my win, Hubert Jolie, the CEO of Best Buy, is stepping down.

He took over as CEO of Best Buy in 2012. And what do you think the prospects were for Best Buy in 2012? Shitty. Shitty, down shitty avenue. Yeah, literally, except worse than that. And, and he, yeah. And the stock was a 20. The stock is up 300% since then. And it's really a, it's a great example of corporate leadership. And he invested, he said, we're not going to worry about short-term problems to make long-term investments. So the first thing he did was he said, we're going to

match every price. And you couldn't walk into a Best Buy without a smartphone, without a blue shirt running up to you and saying, we'll match that price. So they immediately got rid of this whole showrooming phenomena, which was supposed to be kind of the night king to retail, where everyone was going into retail establishments and then going home and buying it on Amazon. He immediately gutted that by saying, we will match any price you can pull up on your phone. And speaking of blue shirts, while everyone was investing in artificial intelligence, he did the gangster move and he zigged while everyone was zagging and invested in organic intelligence and charted a career path for people, assistant managers and managers.

And when you go into a Best Buy, the mood, the optimism, the expertise, the domain knowledge of blue shirts is really outstanding. And it gives you reason to go into stores because people no longer go into stores for products. They go in for people. Best Buy. Yes, I agree. I was just in a store the other day. Oh, Best Buy is wonderful.

It's a really fun experience. They were the first or one of the first other than Home Depot and Walmart maybe to look at at their stores, not as liabilities, but as assets, and created an infrastructure where they turned these 550 Best Buy stores. Actually, I think I got that wrong. There's more than that. They turned all their stores into flexible warehouses. And if you live in Delray Beach and order a flat-screen TV from Best Buy, you get it faster than you order it from Amazon because they fulfill it out of the Boca Raton Best Buy store. But this guy has really, I mean, he has stared down.

There's a great white shark off the shore, and he jumped into the water and punched that shark in the nose. And in addition, his success— How are we getting sharks? What? Roy Scheider, Jaws, one are we getting to sharks? What? Roy Scheider, Roy Scheider, Jaws, one of the hugely underrated actor. Anyways, I get it.

I get, I get that's what you're supposed to do, but you should not get, you didn't jump in the water. The bottom line is just stay out of the water. But there's no, there's no, yes,

exactly. It's my policy. Going back to his successor, a woman named, I think I'm going to get her, I hope I don't get her wrong, Corey, Corey Berry, I think her name is. And she's about to become not only one of the 4% of the 23 CEOs of the S&P 500, there's only 4% female CEOs in the S&P 500. She's going to be the youngest CEO

in the S&P. So kudos to the board. There you go. She's got to be incredibly impressive. She's the CFO there. But just kudos to Best Buy. Great company, fantastic CEO. When they cut onions, onions cry. They were not afraid of Amazon, and they took them on full force, and they won. Youngest CEO of S&P 500 now, another female.

There's been a lot of interesting dynamic female CEOs recently. Helena Folks at Hudson Bay. A lot of them in commerce. Katrina at Citrix. There's been a lot of them. So anyways, my winner is Ubera Jolie and Best Buy.

Great company, great CEO, great tenure. Well done. All right. All right, fail. Fail. I'm going to go with YouTube. Great company, great CEO, great tenure. Well done. All right. All right, fail. Fail. I'm going to go with YouTube. The burning of Notre Dame, by the way.

Sad, sad place. But the links that they put in the info about it were about 9-11 attacks under the Notre Dame fire videos. So say more. What happened? I heard about it, but I don't understand what happened. I'm going to flag them. Oh, it just was, first of all,

misinformation about Notre Dame spread very quickly on social media, but like whatever, that happens every day of the week and twice on Sunday. But, you know, they flagged videos, they mistakenly, as 9-11 conspiracy. You know, whatever. They said they made their tool for battling misinformation married what they called the wrong call. And so they linked it to 9-11. And then they said in a statement, we are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral. These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call. We were disabling these

panels for live streams related to the fire. So I got to do this on everything like, oh, oops, like that kind of thing. So what is it? The question I have, and I'm asking this to learn not to not to answer, but I was and it sounds like I was really hit when I when I saw it, when I saw my Amazon show that Notre Dame was on fire, it actually emotionally kind of shook me. And I'm trying to figure out why. And the response has been, there's been this overwhelmingly positive, empathetic, wonderful response globally on this. And I'm trying to figure out what is it about the Notre Dame that has evoked so much emotion. Nobody, my understanding is nobody was hurt.

Is that right? Well, one firefighter and two police officers were injured, but incredibly no one was killed. Look, everybody either wants to go to Paris or did as a college student. You know what I mean? Everyone, and that is what you think of the Eiffel Tower, which is more about modern France, right?

And the modernist square. And you think about Notre Dame, it's right in the middle of the old city. It's on the left and right bank, right? And so I think everyone has either a hope or dream or has a memory of going there, right? One or the other. And so, and it's, you know, it's beautiful. It's lasted for so long. It just doesn't, it changes and it doesn't change. It's a scene for so many iconic photographs of Paris and stuff. I think everyone has a relationship with Paris in some way, right? Everybody in the world. It's

like New York. Everyone has a relationship with New York City. And so, you know, there's very few iconic things in this world. I would say the Golden Gate Bridge is one. You know, not the Twin Towers, but the Eiffel Tower. It was terrible what happened to the Twin Towers, but I think more the Empire State Building in New York or the Chrysler Building in London, probably Parliament, I guess. You know what I mean? Or maybe the Buckingham Palace, you know, all over the world. The Taj Mahal, the Great Wall. You

could circle the world and pick 10 to 12 things that everybody thinks about, right? So that's, to me, what's going on. Like, that you have the relationship with these iconic... I like you more right now than I've ever liked you. That was gangster. That was almost poetic. Wait, let me, hold on. The Notre Dame is all of our hopes and dreams. I'm going to donate the first $10,000 to have that inscribed somewhere on the Notre Dame.

That was poetic. They're not going to have inscriptions. They're not that, the French are classy people. They're not going to have, like here, that would totally be a US are classy people. They're not going to have – like, here, that would totally be a U.S. You don't like the arch in St. Louis? Did you see – Water cannon. Staples Stadium in L.A.?

Come on. Good God. We have some masterpieces. Yeah. So my loser? So, look, I think the unicorn class – God, I sound just – mine just sucks compared to yours. The unicorn class, I think, is the big loser this year. For all the excitement and all the analysts who will come on and talk about disruption and use words like network effects, I think that, and this is a prediction, I think when we look at 2019 in retrospect, all of the unicorns that have gone public will have lost more market cap than they've gained.

I think that their IPO prices combined, their market cap combined will be greater on the day of their IPOs than it will be 12 months on. I think the unicorn class is going to lose in 19. All right. That's a good one. That's a great one. Oh, I hate that. Never mind. Let me use more amorphous words. No, I love that. Yep. Yep. Yep. So talk now to me about- Yeah, well, that's a prediction, and it indicates a larger issue here, and that is, and hopefully Representative Nadler's comments are adding to this drip, drip, drip that starts to become something real, but I think we have a small group of companies

that have basically cut off the oxygen from almost everyone else, and even unicorns are having a tough time getting out. You know, I mean, you realize if Amazon or Facebook announced without any sort of press release talking about using the word pins or boards, they could basically screw the Pinterest IPO. Yes, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

But, you know, Amazon's tried different things and hasn't been successful. Just because they try. Look, lots of companies say the things. I don't know. No, I like them. I like the Pinterest. Amazon can now perform Jedi mind tricks and just basically start killing a company by just thinking ill of it and putting out press releases. They could absolutely, they could take more likely Facebook.

But if Facebook announced an initiative with Instagram that involves some sort of pins or boards, I don't think Pinterest gets out. They have had a record of failure when they do that. Just so you know. They've tried to do all kinds of copycats of a lot of things. The only one that worked was Instagram, and that's because of Kevin's system, in my estimation. It's going to be interesting. An interesting person. We'll see where it goes.

We'll see where it goes. So my prediction is that code is going to be amazing. That's my prediction. We just announced Stacey Abrams is coming to talk about Fair Fight. That's a good I know. Thank you. I got, oh, I got a big one. I can't say right now, but I got one that you're going to love. You're going to be so excited to be there for this. Is Kit Harington coming? That's the only person I want to meet. No, why wouldn't I like hug him? Like, why would I have a face off? Think of someone I'd face off with. Like there's a lot, but you know, it's going to be good. It's going to be a mano a mano interesting.

face off with. Like, there's a lot. But, you know, it's going to be good. It's going to be a mano a mano interesting... You should interview him just for... Because he's like 4'10".

He's tiny. He was on... I've met him. He was on Saturday Night Live and I'm like, oh my God, he looks like my paper boy. The guy is so tiny.

He's not the king of the North. He's tiny. He's like... I did an event. I did a lot. I was very close to Richard Plepler and so whenever they had premieres, we used to do premieres

here in Silicon Valley and the geeks loved it and as I told you, they came dressed up. And so whenever they had premieres, we used to do premieres here in Silicon Valley and the geeks loved it. And as I told you, they came dressed up. They'd bring the Iron Throne, which I'm certain is made of plastic. And they it was some knives taped on it. And people would sit and take pictures. But one year we did it and

they brought in George R.R. Martin and then the two creators of the show. I forget their names. And I did a stage interview with them, which was great. And they also brought all the cast members. He was one of them. Cersei, yeah. No, no, I'm not Cersei.

Daenerys, I'm sorry. Oh, God. Bite my tongue. No, not Cersei. Daenerys, right. They're right. They brought her. They brought, I don't know.

They were all looking good. They're all good-looking people. But they sat there and they came to the thing. And it was a very exciting thing. But he wasn't that small. He was like small the way actors are small. Well, the screens are horizontal so you have Tom Cruise or whatever he is.

Five, nine. They're the stars. And Tom Selleck was never a movie star because he was too tall. But anyways, another big prediction. I can't resist and this is important. This is important and I don't say this lightly because it has impact on society and it's a controversial statement. But Jamie Lannister is going to kill Cersei.

You heard it here, Cara. I choose heroin. I choose heroin. I am doing nothing but Game of Thrones for the next literally like five weeks. Do not call me. Do not bother me. Winter is coming. Winter is coming.

Oh, my God. Oh, it's a television show. You'll be on to the next one. Enjoy. Oh, my God. Well, it's ending. Let me give you some information. Just like all things in life, it's ending. That will be that, and then you can watch endless reruns of it, and then be like, why did I ever watch this? It's so confusing

and viral. It's ridiculous. It's Cialis, vitamin water, marijuana, and Game of Thrones. Such a man show. And just let me check out. I am ready to go. Take me, God. I'm waiting. Okay.

Thank you, Karen. All right. Thank you, Scott. It's time to go. What else are you doing this week? What are you doing this week? I'm super excited. I'm doing a lot of stuff.

Our kids are going to be in town, and we're going to do a bunch of New York stuff. We're going to go see the new, what's it called? The octagon or hexagon over in Hudson Yards. Oh, Hudson Yards. Yeah, yeah. And I want to, yeah, we're probably going to go see a play and be tourists in our own town. Do you like Hudson Yards? My girlfriend works there.

I think Hudson Yards is, I don't quite understand Hudson Yards. I think it's just so far out there. I love it. Look, it took vision. I really like Dan Dockdraff and all the people that made that happen. I think it's an inspiration. But I just, whenever I go over there, I think, okay, how the vision. I really like Dan Doktraf and all the people that made that happen. I think it's an inspiration. But I just, whenever I go over there, I think, okay, how the hell do I get out of here? I find it difficult to get in and out of Hudson Airways.

But that's not a here and there. Anyway, thank you so much, Scott. Thank you. I think we're going to go now. See you soon. Rebecca Sinanis produces the show. Nishat Kerwa is the executive producer. Thanks also to Eric Johnson.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week with more of a breakdown of all things tech and business. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, rate, and review Pivot on Apple Podcasts. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you,

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