Pivot - What the OnlyFans news says about power and control, Cathie Wood's transparent investment strategy, and a prediction on the federal reserve pulling away from the punch bowl

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

Guest co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin joins Kara to discuss TikTok's e-commerce play with Shopify, Airbnb's announcement to house 20,000 Afghan refugees, and how more businesses are going to start requiring COVID-19 vaccination proof. Kara and Andrew also discuss OnlyFan's decision to reverse course on its plan to ban sexually explicit content, and then break down Cathy Wood’s popularity with high-risk investors. Plus, a question on the future of healthtech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Galloway is still somewhere tweeting and missing me. So I'm joined by his favorite Canadian, Andrew Ross Sorkin of The Good Hair, also New York Times columnist and editor, co-anchor of Squawk Box, and author of Too Big to Fail. Andrew, how are you? I'm great, but we still have never gotten to the bottom of this whole Canadian thing. Do we even know? I don't know.

Do we know where that's from? It was probably some ayahuasca moment, and he just decided. He has a massive crush on you. Like, kind of creepy, honestly. It's mutual, by the way. I'm a big fan. Don't. Don't.

Don't tell him that. Okay. Well, he knows. I'm a big fan. I'm just happy to sit in his seat and keep it warm. Yes, but he's like deeply, he thinks I'm trying out hosts to replace him. And that is in fact true. I saw that commercial for Pivot. I also saw his other commercial, frankly. So I know. I know that. At any moment, Scott might cancel himself. That is correct and deservedly so.

I would defend him on that. He could do it. So this is a tryout then? No, it is. Of course it is. But I'd like to like bother him with people like Preet. I have George Hahn. I've got some others. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens.

We'll see how it goes. We'll see how he behaves. No, I really do miss him, but let's not tell him that. So let's get onto the stories because there's so much to talk to you about particularly. So a couple of things we're just going to talk about just briefly. TikTok is partnering with Shopify to strengthen its e-commerce ties. This is a thing that they had talked about when Trump was trying to do whatever he was trying to do with it, to link it with Walmart and stuff like that. So Shopify vendors with TikTok accounts can now add shopping tab to their profiles.

What do you think about this? Because this has been discussed many times. Instagram is a platform that does this too. This is the only way that TikTok is ever going to get to the same place as Instagram slash Facebook, right? So to me, this is, I don't know if this is the Holy Grail for them or not, but given that they don't really have a backend platform like this, given that Facebook effectively does, to some degree, already provide these services, I think this is what you would do if you were them.

Shopify's an interesting choice. And you didn't want to build it yourself. Right, right. And I think it also speaks volumes about Shopify. I mean, the growth of Shopify in the past 18 months is insane. Well, not being in Amazon's a big deal. Being an alternative to Amazon, right? They're not going to sign up with Amazon here. They didn't want to do it with Walmart. You know, it's kind

of interesting in that regard. But I'm going to, I will make one point about this because I know that you and Scott talk about Amazon all the time and potentially Amazon is a monopoly all the time. I say to anybody who says Amazon's a monopoly, I say Shopify. Right. Tell me how Shopify could have a hundred billion dollar plus valuation at the same time that Amazon is somehow-

Absolutely, but that's two. Okay, that's two. We're talking about sort of the decimation of other- No, I know, but everybody thinks that Amazon has somehow quashed all sorts of innovation. And I look at Shopify and I say that that is the opposite side of that argument. Yeah, Andy Jassy should send a fruit basket to Shopify, to Toby at Shopify. Yeah, definitely.

There has to be an alternative. And there's a good business in being the alternative, right? Like Microsoft with Apple and this, you know, Apple. So the real question, though, is do you believe that Shopify is the alternative or you think that Walmart is the alternative? I think Walmart has struggled and struggled and struggled for many years. And I have a lot of regard for, well, good example, Doug McMillan, you may have been there. Was it Code a couple of years ago? And he talked about a 10,000 square foot store that you looked at things and then ordered them and they were delivered to your home instead of their 200,000, 180,000 square foot stores.

And it was, nobody paid attention, but I had covered retail for years. I was like, this is a big deal with this guy I just said. They didn't do it. And Amazon is now doing Amazon Freshes all over my neighborhood in DC. They're doing the small, the goes, the freshes, the possible department stores. This was an idea that, it's not a fresh new idea necessarily. And if you're Doug on a day like this past week when this announcement got made, are you saying I lost it? I don't know where they were. They had it. Why didn't they do it?

Like, that's the thing. Like, they had been, I'm doing a memoir, your wife is my agent actually, on the stuff. And I look back old stories. My old story is about Walmart taking over everything, right? Killing off Garfinkel. So I don't know. Interesting time. I don't know.

I only say that because you thought that Microsoft and Walmart were going to come together and do that as part of the Trump thing, as you mentioned. And then they didn't happen. And here we are. Yeah. So Airbnb says it's funding housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees around the world. Again, this is something Brian Chesky's done several times around Charlottesville. He's done it around all kinds of stuff. He goes out on a limb progressively in this area.

It's also a good brand attribute. What do you think about that? I think for the brand of Airbnb, it is another masterstroke for Brian. Having said that, I'm sure it does not ingratiate himself with Kevin McCarthy and Republicans who seem to be so insistent that these refugees, you know, either aren't refugees or somehow should never come to America or should not be, you know, given a home, which I think, as you probably can imagine. Yeah, but we left them behind, you know, just so you know.

I heard that. I don't know what news channel you're watching, but yes. So this is a good thing for them to do. If you're Brian, it's- I think Brian has staked out a place in the United States and globally around being this progressive brand. And I think that attracts people to the brand. I think the complicated part for Brian is going to be over time, you know, which landmine you try to avoid and which landmine you accidentally step on.

Yeah. They're involved, by the way, with the Olympics now. They're going to be a sponsor in China this winter. Yeah. I think that's actually going to be complicated. So, right, because here on one side, you're going to be, you know, working with Afghan refugees, which I think is a marvelous thing. But the same people who believe that are going to say, Brian, how can you therefore be involved

with China? Yep. 100%. I mean, like all these businesses. But at the same time, like, there's no negative to saying we're going to fund Afghan refugees for them. And by the way, Nazis aren't allowed to stay with us. It's kind of a good brand attribute, but you're right.

I think it's a great brand attribute until you believe that there is some senator, congressperson, or somebody else on the other side of this argument who says, you know, we're going to tax these people. We're going to regulate Airbnb because we hate them. You remember what they did in Georgia to Delta Airlines over some of these issues? They tried. They actually, they tried, but that cost them some real money. That was real money. That was real tax dollars.

I think Delta looked good in that one. Yeah, but you're right. I thought Delta looked fabulous, but it's an impact. And so that's the part, you know, right now I think progressive politics or some semblance of progressive politics are popular and popular enough. The question is what happens over time and does it swing in a different way? Look, Patagonia just did it again and it does it again and again. And it's been nothing but net for them in terms of people wanting, you know, their most recent things. So I don't know. I feel like if you stick to it and he keeps doing it, I think it's probably a good thing.

So last thing, Disney, speaking of people fighting with politicians, Disney, last one was Delta. You mentioned that and Patagonia, obviously. Disney Cruise Line announced that it will require vaccination proof from all passengers above the age of 12 from Florida to the Bahamas. This goes against DeSantis ban on vaccine passports. Disney is a big player in Florida. This is a what is I don't know what it is, a shot across, whatever you call it. But how can you lose? Who's got, let's think about this.

Who's got the leverage? DeSantis or Disney? Disney. Disney not only has the leverage because of their size, because the number of people they employ in Florida. I mean, the whole, Disney should be, should be the governor of Florida at this point. Yeah, yeah.

So what, why do, they just were like, screw you, DeSantis. This is a big deal. Disney doing this. The other cruise lines did it in a little bit and were sort of got attacked by DeSantis. But if, you know, now he's got to attack Disney, which is, I think, eee.

He can't attack Disney in the same way he couldn't attack those school districts that were saying you got to wear a mask. Yeah, yeah. What does that put DeSantis at? What does it do when he's, when all these businesses are going up against, I saw Kristi Noem's one last night,

which I thought was rather clever, actually. She's sort of the smarter DeSantis. She's like, we're for business freedom and we may not agree, but they should do what they want. Like she was, she was fascinating in her little. Well, look, can you be a Republican who believes in free markets and then tell a company

that they can't require their employees to do certain things? Yeah. Yeah. She's she threads. She threaded that needle. He's an oaf. He looks like an oaf. And I think it's really hurt his. And then the other question is, is DeSantis playing to be the governor again in Florida or is DeSantis playing to be on the national stage in a different way, in which case the audience becomes quite different? I suppose. I just think it's just think he looks like an oaf. I think fighting with Disney and fighting with businesses is a real problem. All right, let's go on to big stories.

OnlyFans. This is the big story. You're very interested in this. I love this story for so many reasons. I cannot wait. Let me just fill people in on it. Reverse course on its plan to ban sexually explicit content. These are sex workers. The company created quite a stir with the

creator economy last week when it said it would ban sexually explicit content because of restrictions from banking partners. I feel like it may have been a feint. Anyway, less than a week later, OnlyFans announced it was suspending the policy change that had, quote, secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community,

which means from banks or whatever. So explain this. What's the game plan? Why did it reverse? Okay, so. What's going on? Okay, I love this story, not because of the porn side. I want to be clear with you about that.

Scott might have a different view about that. I'm not Scott. I'm not Scott. I love this story because it speaks to freedom of speech. It speaks to monopolistic potentially practices or power among the financial universe in terms of the banks, whether that was an excuse or not, we can get to. And it speaks to this idea of empowering the creator community, even if it means you're naked. Yeah. Which to me is unto itself

a fascinating sort of component part of all this. Yeah. We are pro-sex workers here at Pivot, but go ahead, keep going. Well, so no, and this is what's so interesting. By the way, I will say there has been a shift,

at least online, if you spend time on Twitter enough, in terms of support for sex workers in a way that they were not being supported only a week ago. So all of a sudden, sex workers became creators. I thought that as just a little bit of a mind-blowing moment. This was a big part of this company's business, right?

So what do you think actually happened behind the scenes? Huge part of this. I actually do believe it was the banks. I don't think that that was a head fake at all. I think that banks over the head fake at all. I think that banks over the past year, you saw it happen. Actually, Nick Kristof, our colleague at the New York Times, deserves a lot of credit for putting pressure on the credit card companies to abandon sites like Pornhub and other sites like that. I think that some of the banks took a new look at

it. I think some of the credit card companies took a new look at it. I think some of the credit card companies took a different look at it. In this case, it wasn't the credit card company. So there's two pieces of this. There's the rails, the MasterCards and Visa. They were not the ones that were having the problem. It's the underwriters. So the people, when you get a credit card, you don't just get a Visa card, you get a Visa card from Chase or wherever. And it was some of those banks that were saying, we don't want to process these types of purchases, partially from a reputational perspective. One of the other reasons, by the way, historically, banks have not wanted to process these types of transactions,

is how often they get a phone call later from somebody, including parents and other things, saying, this was not an authorized sale. You need to now send it back to us. So there was actually a higher risk for them. That it's a teen or something like that. It's a stolen credit card, that there's a fake something, that there's a kid doing it, all sorts of things. My mind immediately went to my teenage sons, but go ahead. But this is exactly why banks don't like processing these types of transactions. So that part, from just an economic perspective, makes sense.

I did an interview with Bango when he was leaving MasterCard. And he, I can't tell you, the sex workers came down on him and me for just even talking about it. And obviously, Nick Kristof on these things said we were, you know, trying to inhibit sex and this and that. And it was a really interesting experience doing that. But why did they reverse if they said they were going to do it? What was, did suddenly- Well, from my understanding of it, and, you know, there's probably more reporting to do. I think that there are some banks that will transact for you that make it a lot easier.

I think they have probably found some of those. will transact for you that make it a lot easier. I think they have probably found some of those. I also think there were some banks that didn't think about sex workers as part of the content creators or the creator community or the creator economy. And so I think that's a bit of a mind shift that's taking place in the finance industry.

And I also think that there's another component part of this, which is that banks are increasingly nervous that regulators are going to look at them as having too much power. Now, I'm somebody who's been writing for years less about how banks could impact the sex work industry and more about how banks could impact the gun industry. So I've advocated in a bunch of columns over the past couple of years and sort of exposed the idea and opportunity that banks could have to control the gun industry,

something that you talked to MasterCard about guns and other things as well, that they don't want to do. They don't want to do it for political reasons because what they don't want to do, this goes back to where we were talking about DeSantis in Florida and all sorts of other things. They don't want, or Delta, they don't want politicians to say, okay, we're going to regulate you now. Okay, you don't want to either loan money to that person or provide them with

credit because you don't like that kind of thing. And so this is, to me, this is like a microcosm of all of these issues in one. Well, here's what's interesting. Two things. One is this idea that content creators are of all kinds, shapes, and sizes, right? And so what do these sex workers deserve in terms of service and protections, like labor protections and things like that, like you're an Uber driver or anything else? like you're an Uber driver or anything else. And on the flip side, and I'd love you to talk about it,

because I interviewed Ashton Kutcher and Julie Cordova yesterday from Thorne about this Apple thing, which has attracted a lot of controversy. And it's reported that Facebook accounts for nearly 95% of online child exploitation reports. That's because they actually track them. Apple hadn't until recently. Or not that much. So when you think about these, these banks also,

because we talk about social networks being social arbiters, you know, of, of things, and we force them into it. We get angry with them

if they have anti-vax or whatever happens to be the problem of the day. These banks are in a much more, you know, and you notice that with the January 6th thing when I did that parlor interview,

they all threw him off suddenly because he said some things they didn't like. So where does that put these banks? They kind of have no choice, right? Well, so I think that the banks are like platforms. Right. And yes, you can de-platform somebody. A bank has every right to take a customer or not take a customer. The only thing you cannot do is do it in a discriminatory way. You cannot effectively discriminate against, quote unquote, protected classes. But you can decide. I'm not doing sex workers or whatever.

I'm not doing sex workers or I'm not doing that. And by the way, there are a lot of folks who've decided they don't want to be in certain businesses. So Stripe, and I give them a lot of credit on guns or other things where they say, we just don't transact guns. That's not our business. Apple, we don't do that. That's not the way we're approaching this. By the way, Apple, and we can have lots of debates about their quote unquote walled garden, right? They decide what, they're not doing sex work apps on their platform, right? And do we think that's terrible? I mean, maybe we do. I mean, this goes back to the whole sort of power dynamic and whether you think that these sites

should have the control that they do. I am a believer that customers buy products from companies based on what you think they stand for, what they mean. This goes, now we're talking about, go back to Brian and Airbnb or Patagonia. Or Disney. based on what you think they stand for, what they mean. This goes, now we're talking about, we go back to Brian and Airbnb or Patagonia. Or Disney.

And I think that's totally fine. Yeah. Now, if they're all colluding together to say, you know what, no bank or no platform- Wants to do sex workers or guns. Wants to do sex workers, and they're talking to each other and saying, we're all going to do this together,

arguably that's a problem. So when you think about this, when you think about the banks going back and forth on OnlyFans, one of the things OnlyFans had said last week, I believe, is that they couldn't raise venture money. I can't believe venture capitalists have the lowest bar in the planet. I mean, it's lower than the lowest spot on this earth. I don't think that Andreessen Horowitz is getting into the sex worker business anytime soon. I mean, I think most of the-

Is that really true? They can't find money? There's money, like, there's not enough rat holes to shove down all the money available to a lot of these startups. And if it's especially lucrative, there's always someone who's going to pony up, do a SPAC. I think that there's some-

I don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe. Maybe there is. But by the way, there's less- So this is interesting. There's probably not a bank in town right now

that would take your company public if you were doing this kind of thing. So there's also the argument to say that from a business perspective, long-term value creation as a platform that actually being a, quote, straight platform, for lack of a better phrase, or let's call it sex worker free, might actually be a better business model long term. Let me just say, I'm going to make the opposite. Look at Tumblr. It was bought for a badillion dollars by Marissa Mayer, and then it was sold for like $3. You and I could have bought Tumblr at the end, right? So look, that was a heavy duty.

That was a lot going on there. And so they lost all their value. That was their, and the same thing with OnlyFans. I think people know this for what it is, and this same thing with OnlyFans. I think people know this for what it is, you know, especially during the pandemic, it got bigger. I think this is what they're married to and they have to figure out a way through. But maybe there was a, but I would say, and maybe you can't pivot, pivot, here we are on pivot. Could you pivot the business model? I don't know. And maybe you'd want to try to pivot the business

model because look, my kids are too young, though, and who knows, maybe they are on this stuff, and I don't know, and I'm praying that I'm keeping an eye on all this stuff. But I wouldn't want them on OnlyFans, right? Because I know what's on there, even if they told me what they were really trying to go find was something right. And so maybe there's a bigger art, bigger, there's a bigger TAM. I hate TAM, but there's a bigger TAM if there's no sex workers on the platform. Presumably, but again, look, every, the minute they take them off, they run smack into TikTok. They run smack into other creator platforms. And there's like a new creator platform every five minutes. And so I think this differentiates them. And it's just, I'd love to understand

what happened behind the scenes, like here. They got a bank or someone to do it, just the way Parler got someone to do their tech after they got dumped by a bunch of people. There's always someone lining up. Anyway, this is a really interesting, we're going to keep watching this. It's a fascinating area.

But you're right. People are really suddenly very pro-sex workers. Like, how dare they not let them do that, create that online? It's interesting. Hugh Hefner would love what's happening. Hugh Hefner. Whatever. Hugh Hefner would love what's happening. Yep. Andrew, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the New York Times profile

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From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Andrew, we're back with our second big story. This is an area I'd really like to understand from you. This is a phenomenon, this particular investor is. The New York Times published a profile detailing the rise and success of Cath Kathy Wood, the Wall Street vet and founder of ARK Invest. The profile, titled God, Money, YOLO, How Kathy Wood Found Her Flock, starts with her bullish stance on Tesla,

explains how it helped build her strange alliance with a new generation of risky traders. She's really popular. I've been aware of this. She started ARK Investment in January 2014. The firm invests solely on disruptive innovation. I have to tell you, so many people have a target on her. She's a fascinating character. Tell us about her and what you think about this strategy to be as transparent as possible

with her investments and her decisions. Okay, so I've known Kathy Wood for quite some time. We've interviewed her on Squawk Box, actually, more times than I can remember. And I will tell you, especially early on, I thought that she was a bit crazy. I did not, I didn't get the joke. To find crazy, why is that? Tell me why that is. She would come on and tell us that, you know, Tesla was going to the moon.

And, you know, she would set these price targets, which seemed completely unreasonable at the time. Yeah, it seems very Henry Blodge at Amazon. And she had lots of math, which didn't, at least to me, particularly make a lot of sense. I know I get a lot of, you know, feedback on Twitter saying, you know, how is this person on TV saying these things? None of this makes any sense. And yet, to a large degree, at least temporarily, and we won't know whether it's temporary or forever, she's been right. Which is to say that Tesla's gone up. She was an early believer in Bitcoin. She was indeed. And so many other parts of this, as you described, YOLO economy. And so she clearly tapped into something and not just tapped into the right stocks to buy, but also how to communicate with this sort of new generation of social media driven Robin Hood trader.

generation of social media driven Robin Hood trader. And so she's attracted a ton of money into her funds. And as a result, literally when she puts out a statement saying, we bought X at the end of the day, there are people who are literally, some people just own her fund, but there's a lot of other just straight up copycats. Yeah, because she's very transparent about her investments, which is usually not what these people do. They'll say even one thing and do another sort of like it's essentially an episode of Billions. Speaking of Andrew Ross Sorkin. No, no. But what's so interesting about the idea of the transparency is thus far, the transparency has worked, meaning every time she says she's buying something, people copy it because it's working, right?

The flip side can also be true, which is to say that when someone makes a trade, makes it public, when it's public, sometimes there are people who then decide that they want to take the opposite side of the trade. That is not happening in this instance because so far in this, at least the past 18, 24, whatever months. Yeah, she's killing it. You know, everything's working. Yeah. So when you have potential risky, it's obviously riskier investing. How should they think about when they're following her investment strategy?

Look, I don't want to offer investment advice. The only thing I'd say is diversifying matters. And so if you have all your eggs in the Cathie Woods basket and you're trying to make sure that you're diversifying your risk, that's not probably the best idea in the world. want to gamble on this sort of YOLO economy. Heavy word. That's- YOLO, Andrew. No, but that's what it is. What do you think of YOLO? What do you think of YOLO?

I mean, it kind of shows the tech market is kind of a gamble. We are in a YOLO moment. The question is, is this a tulips moment? Have we always been in a YOLO moment? And just the very powerful people know that and we didn't, all us chumps? Ooh, I don't think so, actually. I think that we're in a YOLO moment because you can get money from effectively the government

via the banks for next to nothing right now. The stimulus money was thrown around. There were a lot of people hanging around during COVID, stuck inside, so they had nothing to do but basically gamble and trade,

and that's what they've wanted to do. And now that we've sort of lived through a pandemic, hopefully coming out on the other side, but who knows where we really are. I think there is a YOLO sense of, you know what, screw it. I'm just going to start spending money because who knows the next time I'm going to have the opportunity to. So all of that. Now, the question is, can you create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Right. And that's to me the interesting part of it. If everyone just spends all their money all the time, that's great. If everyone's YOLOing, in other words. If everyone YOLOs, can you just keep building a persistent YOLO economy?

Right. So the New York Times profile found she manages nearly $85 billion, which is up from less than $10 billion at the end of 2019. First of all, where's her money coming from? And knowing her trails are trailing the overall market this year, I know you don't want to give investment advice, but what typically happens here? There have been popular.

Who was the last popular person like her? There was another investor that then sort of hit the skids and this and that. I mean, obviously every investor hits the skids at some point. But what is the... Well, look, I mean, Bill Miller, who is going into these funds? Yeah.

Well, right now it appears that it is a younger generation of trader, of Robinhood investor. But there's some institutional money in these things now. I mean, it's not all just straight retail, but the interest around her is mostly retail. Okay. And the question is, this time around, is retail somehow smarter than what used to be described as the smart money? It used to be that the retail was the dumb money.

Dumb money. The institutions were the smart money. Yeah. Has that, you know, has GameStop and AMC somehow changed that dynamic? I happen to think it probably hasn't long-term, but boy, has it short-term. Yeah. Yeah. You can make some money. So who does she compare to? Can you think about, and then I have one more question on her. I mean, who does she compare to? Was there a character like her? Like, look, you're, you work on billions. Is there, you have a Cathie Wood character on billions? Is there a character,

is there a character in this day and age? I'm thinking, I'm actually thinking, and we could probably do this together, back in the late 90s, who do you think were those types of characters? I mean, Henry didn't have his own fund. No, he didn't, but he remembered that at all. But Henry was a believer in this stuff. Mary Meeker. Henry's a little bit more circumspect today. Mary Meeker.

Though I would say that Mary's been, I mean, Mary was both, this was so interesting. She was a real cheerleader of this, yeah. But she was right. She was right. Turned wrong, turned right again. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

I think she had an overall thesis and much more conservative, but both of them had the overall thesis of the growth of the internet. I think nobody understood what the pandemic would do, especially this particular go-round. But I think, yeah, I suppose Henry would do it. But I would also say that there's one different insight that Cathie Woods has had here that actually is, to me, interesting. And it relates to Tesla, but it relates to maybe some of these other meme stocks as well, which is that it's not just the business model that has to be scalable.

It's the ability to get new capital that has to be scalable. And that if you can effectively continue to get new capital, you can almost create your own self-fulfilling prophecy of success, right? Right. Okay. And that is actually an insight that most investors have thus far completely missed. I see. That's a really smart one. Who's coming after her?

That's my last question. I mean, because it looks like people are coming after her, but they don't see. You know, I was just, again, I was doing this research for my book. And you remember David Rocker was all after AOL 100 years ago? He was sort of correct, but he was not correct, if that makes sense. He was technically correct, but he was not correct, if that makes sense. He was technically correct, but not strategically. I just think the classic Wall Street banks, the classic hedge fund managers, that anybody who believed in Graham Dobb or Warren Buffett, anyone who believes in these classic models looks at Cathie Woods, and they turn up their nose, and they say, this is ridiculous,

and I don't get it. And what is she doing? And, you know, she's some kind of Pied Piper. That's what they think. Now they're thinking that while she's laughing, you know, all the way to the bank and they're not. Yeah. I'm going to have her on Sway. At the moment.

Having Kathy Watt on Sway. All right, Andrew, let's pivot to a listener question. Roll tape. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Hey, Kara and maybe Scott, if he's done've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm gonna be a mailman. You've got mail. Hey, Kara and maybe Scott, if he's done gallivanting around the world.

Steven Spiker here, pediatric oncologist by training, now working in health tech. With the recent and not surprising dismantling of Google Health, it has all of us working in health tech asking the question, if a company like Google can't cut it in healthcare, then who is actually capable of innovating in a space where there's such intense need for innovation? Appreciate any insights.

Well, this is an interesting story. You know, both Andrew and I are long enough covering this to have watched Google at this several times. And I literally started researching and I'd forgotten all the things they had done. And then Microsoft with Vault and it just has gone on and on and on. So what Stephen's referring to is Google Health's vice president, David Feinberg's

departure from the company. Feinberg will be joining Cerner, an electronic health records company in October. There's a lot of that going on, electronic health records. And there's several companies that are, Epic, I think is one, and some others. So health tech is still something to be bullish on. Scott always says investors should be looking for every opportunity to get between the intersection of technology and healthcare. But Stephen's right, Andrew. According to a report by Deloitte, investors dumped around $22 billion into digital health companies in 2020. That's more than double the investments made in 2019. Everyone's hoping, like as with climate change, everyone's hoping for the big moment. And Google, Microsoft, Apple have not been as successful.

What do you think? Well, I'm going to push back and say, have they not been successful? I would argue Apple, for example, with the iWatch, has actually changed the dynamic in a material way. Now, have they changed it in a monetary material way yet? I don't know. I wear an Oura ring. I just used a QHealth testing device to test my daughter for COVID. She's negative, happily.

That device, I think, long-term is not only going to be testing for COVID, but next time we think that's— This isn't a rapid test. I used an Ellume rapid test the other day because I was near a COVID person. So I took... No, this is a... This is a... Effectively the equivalent of a PCR test that you would do in your home.

We had these... We had this company actually on our program a while ago. Eventually this test, which is a box, it's a cartridge, it links to your phone. The phone can therefore link to a doctor. You'll be able to put strep tests in there. You'll put, you know, influenza, you know, basically there'll be a test for everything. And how much was this box? Just curious. Cause the Allume thing was 30 bucks. I thought that was a lot. It was great. It was well done. You know what? I don't know. To be honest with you,

I don't know. I just got a test version of it. So I don't know. I think that the box is probably going to, I would imagine, cost a couple hundred dollars. And I would assume the tests would have to be a lot cheaper unless it's, unless they. So the way pregnancy tests have gone, it used to be you went to the doctor, killed the rabbit. Now you have pregnancy tests. But don't you think that that's where all this is going to go? I mean, I think telehealth, telemedicine has actually demonstrably changed even over the past 12 months.

The next time that you are even remotely sick, but not so sick that you're dying, you're going to get on your phone and you're going to talk to your doctor, the equivalent of FaceTime. Maybe you'll have one of these devices in your home. She or he will tell you, you know, take some test and send me the results and then we'll decide what to do. I think there's going to be a lot of that. And I think we actually are on the cusp of a little bit of it. Now, are we on some like mind-blowing change in how medicine and healthcare is going to be paid for and the economics of it all? So you're talking about monitoring because like you have the aura ring and I know you tweeted about it because they're mad that Fitbit's stealing some good bits from them.

They have a way about readiness. They've been pushing themselves as you could recognize COVID because of sleep and this and that. But these are monitoring things, whether it's the aura ring or it's this box. And I agree, like going to get a strep test is a pain in the neck. So you just don't do it, right? This experience I just had with getting these PCR tests was easy because I use curative. I went to like a booth that was in a high school, but it took days and days. It was ridiculous. Like that I waited for so long. And in Europe, there was sort of instant, I took the rapid test and I wasn't sure it was, you know,

it just was one of these moments. I was like, well, this is a waste of my time. Like for sure, I can be making money doing other things and running around going to little booths in, you know, high schools or churches. But it was better than it was, for sure. But this is all monitoring. Like, what you're talking about is monitoring and cutting out some of the really ridiculous stuff we do for health care. But I think they're talking about the idea of records. The data. Data sharing.

Data sharing, getting tested. Obviously, the pandemic's pushed us into this telehealth thing. It hasn't worked as well, obviously, with education. But where do you see the investment possibilities then beyond monitoring? Well, so I think there's going to be the monitoring, testing. But I think the whole experience of going to a doctor is going to fundamentally change. And therefore, by the way, the records issue, meaning the healthcare records issue, will have to change because they're going to have to be more accessible.

You're going to, they probably will all of a sudden be mobile, meaning you're going to have them on your phone, go from one doctor to the next, or go from one doctor to the next sitting inside your own home. I think all of that is coming. It's just taking a long, long time,

in part because of the fact that so many of these healthcare systems already have either old technology that they're still trying to advertise, or the new technology is not completely baked yet. I mean, I've talked to doctors. I've talked to doctors over the years about, you know, why aren't you using the Google service

or somebody else's service? And, you know, they've customized these platforms to such a degree. It's like Oracle and Database. They're sort of in the database of Epic or whatever they're in, and they're just stuck in there. And you're locked in. So I think that there's going to have to be, you know, some transformational work done that effectively gets you to this next place. But I don't know. What about tele health, though?

Well, Tom, you know, you use a lot. I've tried a lot of these. I've just noticed, speaking of ads on Instagram, this thing called Fastik, which is another there's like 20 apps for fasting to monitor rather than doing it yourself on a piece of paper. You know, I tried the continuous glucose monitor thing. Yeah, levels. Which was interesting, most large levels.

And there's several like that, super sapiens and others. Again, this is all sort of tech guys trying not to die. You know what I mean? Essentially. And me and Kara. So what do you,

but where would be, what would be the biggest thing that would have to happen? Would it be, you know, Amazon getting in here? Like I would, honestly, I would trust them over a Walmart or a CVS. Now, CVS and Walmart just got two new CEOs, two women, who are running these companies.

Where is your health care going to come from? The truth is that the challenge at the moment for all, even the monitoring stuff we're talking about, is it's too pricey. I mean, let's be honest, Cara. You and I are like one percenters in this. You know, this Oura ring here, I think. I still was like, be honest, Cara, you and I are like one percenters in this. You know, this Oura ring here, I think- I still was like, fuck this, $33. It costs $300. If you're wearing that Levels patch, that's not a cheap product. I mean, if you want to actually monitor your glucose, it's a couple hundred dollars. All of these things still cost too much. So to me, the real question is, when you can get an Oura ring for

30 bucks or something like that, or it gets subsidized by your insurance company because they actually believe that all of this stuff changes the dynamic. That's the thing I don't know. Meaning we can wear all of this monitoring stuff and then you have to say, is the monitoring stuff truly a nudge enough to change people's behavior to the point where you're seeing demonstrable outcomes? People say to me, oh, you wear your Oura ring, does it really change your sleep? Well, I always say to people, it doesn't really change your sleep. It changes whether you decide, you look at the data and does the data tell you that you should go to sleep earlier? And is that any different than if you didn't? Do you? I actually do.

I have found this thing to be a huge- You're a good Canadian. I have found this monitoring the sleep thing to be a major game changer for me because without the data, I honestly would just be tired all the time. And I still am. It's true.

When I was wearing this, I stopped eating certain things. I did, and I feel better. Honestly, I do. It was interesting. And it was surprising things. It was never the thing I thought. It things. I did. And I feel better. Honestly, I do. It was interesting. And it was surprising things. It was never the thing I thought. It was like something weird.

And I was like, oh, I see what's going on here. But can I throw one? Let me ask you a last question. Can I ask you a health care question? Sure. I would say pre-pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry was hated. Hated, right? Do we love the pharmaceutical industry now?

Do we love Pfizer now? Do we love Pfizer now? Do we love Moderna? Or do we hate Pfizer and Moderna? I was just going to ask you that. I think it's interesting to watch. If you notice certain VCs on Twitter are like, follow the money. They're moving into the conspiracy theory world. Right.

You know, this idea of them trying to benefit and the way we're doing testing helps them and the way we're doing vaccines helps them. You know, the more we're sick or the more we feel we're sicker in fear, there's a lot of that online. I don't know if you've noticed that. Totally. At the same time, remarkable what's going, what's happened, you know, and I credit the more innovative companies like BioNTech and others who have been, by the way, working on a lot of this stuff for a decade, right?

It's not like it's, one of the things I was arguing with one of my relatives was, this is new, this is fresh. I'm like, this has been worked on for a decade. Like, come on. Like, it's just, they're just moving it out quicker for something else. So I think it's both.

I think you sort of are sort of appreciative of how quickly this rolled out. And at the same time, the resistance, that's the last question I was going to ask you. If you're talking about all this monitoring and everything else, people won't take a frigging vaccine. Like, honestly, did you,

there was a fireman from San Francisco who I literally want to go find and punch in the face, except he'd kill me. But it was, it was, it's just amazing to watch. They're not going to be willing to be vaccinated because they think they're being monitored. They're certainly not going to be willing to be monitored on other things.

Okay, so I go back to follow the money in the opposite way of what the venture capitalists, the skeptical venture capitalists online may be saying or conspiracy theorists. I think if there are incentives by either insurance companies, employers, or others to wear either monitoring devices or other things because they believe that having those devices on actually changes people's behavior and makes them healthier, I think people are going to do it. So Delta Airlines just announced that their employees, if you are not vaccinated,

they're not saying you have to be vaccinated. They're saying it'll cost you if you're not vaccinated. It's going to cost you $200 a month if you're not vaccinated. I think you're going to start to see nudges like that around all sorts of versions of health. You know, I like a stick. Other people, I was arguing with someone who was here, they like the carrot method. Like, let's give them this. I'm like, you know what? No, you don't get to come to the concert. You don't get to come. You don't get to, just like with everything else. You don't have your polio vaccine. You don't get to come. Like,

I'm one of those parents. Like, no, thank you. I don't know. I don't like incentives. I think it just is like, I think the only thing, and I get that people get angry about it, but it sort of, it reminds me a lot of sort of, you don't get to drunk drive. You just don't. Unless we get autonomous cars, you don't get to drunk drive. And you get, you pay the price for that, and other people do too. And so I just, I worry about a lot of these things. I think they're all, this monitoring is all good for people, but they will resist it because they feel they're being monitored. And they have good reason not to trust the Googles and even the Apples of the world. Fair enough.

Anyway, we'll see. You have to tell me this. What? When are we going to have autonomous cars? I know it's on a tangent, but I just want to know. Not today. I want to know. Not today.

Not today? Not today. What about 2030? Not tomorrow. I'll ask Elon. He's coming to code. We'll ask. You should come out and ask him yourself. Soonish. Soonish. Not-ish. Not today? Not today. What about 2030? Not tomorrow. I'll ask Elon. He's coming to code. We'll ask. You should come out and ask him yourself.

Soonish. Soonish. Not-ish. Who knows? Not for a while. All right, Andrew, one more quick break and we'll be back for predictions. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy?

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And we are going to see the combination of the pulling back of the punch bowl by the Federal Reserve and the pulling of stimulus checks and unemployment checks and all of that actually start to show itself for the first time. And it's going to get a little dicey in October. People think that.

I've been reading a lot of these newsletters that are saying this October is not going to be a good time for Scalx. I, you know, what newsletters are you reading these days? Hopefully there's- Still, I'm reading a lot of the puck ones. There's one, there's a good one called Dealbook. There's a good one.

Yeah, Dealbook. I read you. Of course I read you. But here's why. Let me ask a question. So the pulling of stimulus checks and the punch bowl, explain what this punch bowl,

they've been doing this thing and it has letters, what's it called? QE, whatever. QE infinity. Quantitative using infinity. We are basically giving, we're printing money

like it's going out of style. Yeah, explain that for regular people. I can't, I always forget it. I mean, the best way to explain what's happening right now is that for many, many years now, we have continued to print money and lower interest rates to next to nothing so that basically money becomes free. If you go get a mortgage today, it's- I know.

I just got one. Tiny. I mean, it's so great. It's so great for you. I, it's tiny. I know, I just got one. Tiny, I mean, it's so great. It's so great for you. I hope you capture a 30-year fixed mortgage because who knows what they're gonna be then. And so, you know, at some point, they're going to pull the punch bowl away from the party

and say, no, no, no, we're gonna increase interest rates. So Jerome Powell's been a punch bowl spiker, in other words? Oh, absolutely. Is he going to be replaced? Let me push you on this prediction. He will not be replaced. I'm very confident he will not be replaced. You can call me on it when he does. All right. Why? Why? Tell me why. Because lots of people think they're going to pick, they name some other people. Because ultimately, he's done a pretty great job.

I think you have Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, who likes him, thinks he's done a good job, thinks the market trusts him. The markets trust him. And there is this sort of strange dynamic between the markets and the economy. And if the markets don't trust you, I think that's a dangerous place to be, too. So I think there's the devil you know versus the devil you don't. Even if they're going to pull the punch bowl. Even if he's pulling the punch. And the similar strikes, I agree with you.

It's really interesting to see what will happen with people going back to work. Everywhere you go, for hire, for hire, for hire. And then by the way, throw in where we are in the pandemic. And there are lots of restaurants. I think they may struggle this winter because people are not gonna wanna eat indoors. Catering companies that were planning to do indoor weddings or conferences or events or all sorts of things

that aren't gonna get the business. So I think it's gonna be a little bit more challenging than it has been. All right, all right. That's an excellent prediction. All right, you had two there. You have Powell is staying in and get careful for October.

I'm so glad I got my mortgage. Anyway, thank you so much, Andrew. As usual, you've been excellent and you win the whole award. No, you don't. I got the job? I got the job! Yeah, no, no, no.

Maybe, maybe you will. Who knows? If Scott doesn't behave, that could be a possibility. Anyway, don't forget, if there is a story in the news and you're curious about and want to hear our opinion on, go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show. Andrew, please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Caroline Shagrin, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Endrodot engineered this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We're back next week with another breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things, Thank you. from the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system. You can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks.

Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. 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.