Debate Aftermath, Amazon Takes on Shein, and Guest Kim Scott

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

How are you doing, Scott?

Where are you?

I'm somewhere in between Greece and Turkey, headed towards the island of Kos,

KOS.

Oh, so you're on a boat

in the Greek Isles, correct?

I'm on a boat.

I'm on a boat.

No, how's that going?

How's that going?

Oh, it's awful, Kara.

It's awful.

No, it's wonderful.

I had never done a holiday like this until a couple of years ago, and it's wonderful.

The kids are,

you know, the kids jump off things and go into town.

And basically, everybody takes care of the kids.

So it's sort of like built-in child care.

And you have, you go to a different island.

It's like, it's nothing but it's absolutely wonderful.

And I feel very self-conscious talking about it.

But yeah, it's wonderful.

Oh, all right.

Then we won't talk about it.

I'm in the

office of my of my father-in-law.

He's a, he's a psychiatrist.

Used to be.

Well, it's about time.

I'm glad you have finally decided to seek help.

My mother-in-law is a psychotherapist, right?

Or psychoanalyst.

I'm not going to get this right.

But anyway, they're, they specialize in the psychiatric profession, but it's the nicest place.

I don't know why I never went to therapy before.

They've, they have this office.

I feel like unloading myself here.

I feel like talking about my childhood and everything else here.

It's such a nice place.

Well, that's what Pivot's for.

This is, this is clear.

I guess so.

This is a couch in the form of a podcast.

Yeah.

It's true.

I'm in an open-minded zone here in this place.

It feels so peaceful.

That would be the Twilight Zone and it doesn't exist.

But anyways, go ahead.

Anyway, there's so much going on.

See, I'm unusually calm given all the stuff that went on since we last spoke um we've got a lot to get to today with the fallout from last week's presidential debate obviously which has driven a lot of people crazy plus our friend at pivot is kim scott former apple and google executive who wrote the book radical candor a few years ago she's out with a new book radical respect how to work together better that's a good thing for us to discuss i think but first uh the supreme court just released its decision on the Trump immunity case in a six to three ruling.

They're all six to three rulings divided along partisan partisan lines.

The court said former presidents have absolute immunity for clearly official acts, but no immunity for unofficial acts.

The case now goes back to the lower court to determine whether Trump's actions were in the official, unofficial capacity, which I think this is kind of what everyone thought would happen, although a lot of people are freaking out.

Just so people don't remember, this is the case where Trump is facing four federal felony counts for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent: in every use of official power, the president is now king above the law.

So I don't know.

What do you think?

I'm actually not that bothered by this, but what I think this says is, look, under the huge powers and responsibilities and decisions with imperfect information that the president of the United States has to make, he does need pretty broad immunity across the decisions made under the auspices of his presidential duties.

Now, having said that, the fact that now whether the guy putting up a golf tent

and trying to inspire an insurrection and sending people hunting for Speaker Pelosi, was that an act of president?

Was that an official act?

So I'm not that bothered by this.

What I am bothered by, and it's not getting any attention, is I think a much more significant ruling came down.

And that was basically

the Chevron doctrine

was found unconstitutional.

And this is a doctrine that essentially says that the courts will defer when there's ambiguous information in a regulation, they'll defer to the experts at the respective agencies.

So they defer to the scientists, aviation experts, and climate change folks at the EPA, FDA, FAA.

You know, these agencies touch almost everything we do.

And now they're saying, no, we're not going to defer to the experts.

It's the deference.

It's the chevron deference, which I thought, I love that expression.

I wanted to name another child chevron deference.

Chevron deference.

It's a good boy, Matt.

But yeah,

it's to defer to the agencies.

Now, the argument on on the other side is that these agencies are unelected officials that get to decide on things that are critical, and they don't get to see the light of day in court or be argued with, which I think is

the conservatives have been trying to sort of remove bureaucratic power for many decades now.

And in some cases, they are correct.

There is too much bureaucratic power without accountability.

On the other hand, you know, experts should be deciding on lots and lots of things.

It's the push-pull of the U.S.

since it started, I think, in many ways.

Yeah, yeah it still bothers me though that given that given the gridlock in washington and how political everything is i do think the folks at the faa the cdc

you know they do try to call balls and strikes and these people aren't looking at what's going to get them on tick tock usually you know their lack of fame is a is a is a feature not a bug this stuff to me it's again it's it's disassembling institutions and the government.

That's what they're trying to do.

That's the goal, I think, here in this.

You know, I think the problem is I was thinking about this a lot because part of me is like, bureaucrats really shouldn't be able to make decisions in secret, like on a lot of things.

There should be a day in court for people who are being

brought in front of the government, essentially.

And part of it makes me feel like that's probably right, that there shouldn't be power coalesced into bureaucracies, right?

But it is that idea that we don't trust our government that really is more disturbing, right?

That we don't assume the very best from the people that are doing this.

You know what I mean?

Like often there's overstepping by these kind of bodies.

And at the same time, the intent of overstepping is not this evil government trying to control this deep state idea that has caught on with so many people.

That's not, it used to be a small portion of people, and now it's an ever larger portion that the government is out to get you.

I'm more cynical.

I see it as a naked transfer of wealth to large corporations who have an army of lawyers who can just come up any attempt to stop them from pouring mercury into the river.

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

This is always, this is a pro-business Supreme Court.

It always has been.

It always has been.

Instead of a metallurgist or an oncologist going, this is what happens when you let automobile companies let their runoff and their waste go into the water table.

And

don't sue us.

We are right.

Defer to us.

We're the experts.

If we're bad at what we do, then find a new head of the EPA, fine.

But this is essentially, these agencies are going to be just as expensive, but instead they're going to be emasculated.

And when you have

the least productive legislative sessions in history, who on earth is actually going to run the fucking place?

You do have to have standards for, you know,

when do you need to, you know, when do you need to have a sea check inspection on your plane that flies people around?

And if they don't have to maintain these incredibly tight standards imposed by the FAA based on, you know, ambiguous, I mean, some of this language, language all over the place is ambiguous, then smaller airlines are going to say, we're about to go to business.

We can't afford this.

We're going to lower our standards.

Yeah.

And our legislators can't pass anything either that would help them, right?

That's the problem.

So getting back to the immunity thing, you know, this is about job doing job too, right?

Like, what is the job you're doing, President Blank, like whoever it happens to be?

So obviously it's going to delay the trials, possibly.

This was the final opinion of an eventful Supreme Court term with conservative justices holding the reins.

Do you think that will affect voters?

I don't think so.

I think that we, the chattering class, are under the impression that people spend as much time as we do thinking about politics and the candidates and the issues.

I think most people, as a matter of fact, probably the people who will decide the election.

I think of myself in my late 20s, early 30s, where I wouldn't literally wouldn't think about an election until one or two weeks before.

And I would make my choice based on general perceptions.

And while I think a lot of this adds up to favorability or unfavorability for a candidate, I think people do recognize that, oh, the president has powers over the Supreme Court.

I don't think they drill down that far.

Well, except for Roe.

I think Roe, definitely, right?

That's the one that broke through.

I'm not sure this immunity thing will.

I don't think the chevron will.

I don't think, you know, the homelessness,

it was sort of a mixed bag, right?

There's a lot of mixed bags here.

Even if you're, I know people go sort of lose their minds over this, but the fact of the matter is Roe is the only one that really has

affected it.

I think people will, but I'm not even sure that they will even go as far as the Supreme Court.

I think they will just go, this candidate is, uh, respects bodily autonomy.

This one does not and is disassembling it.

I don't even think they have the time, the swing voters who are really busy making a living and getting on with their lives, moderates or young people, quite frankly, just, I mean, I know nothing about sports.

I don't want to know anything about sports.

Most people feel that way about, or a lot of people feel that way about politics.

But I agree with you.

One candidate will be seen, and I think

it could be a deciding factor as in favor of protecting a woman's bodily autonomy and the others disassembling it.

Yeah, I do think people do know the Roe v.

White thing.

I think that's very well known by young people, too.

I think that's where they link to the Supreme Court in that way.

But you're right.

You're right.

You know, I mean, I think they, they have a vague, most people have a vague sense of it.

But something that they don't or do have a vague sense of is the current state of the race.

As we record this, it's been several days since the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

The debate was ostensibly supposed to calm fears about Joe Biden's age and mental abilities.

Instead, it did the opposite.

According to a CBS news poll conducted after the debate, 72% of registered voters don't believe Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president.

49% said the same of Trump.

That's a large number, too.

You and I talked to each other on the phone right afterwards, and we had a little pivot show by ourselves on the phone.

So, how do you feel right now?

Mines have shifted again, but go ahead.

Tell me what your thoughts are.

Look,

I'm exactly where I was.

And that is, I think we're descending into

a slow-burn fascism because the Democratic Party wants to whistle whistle past the democracy or fascism graveyard.

I don't, I think we constantly criticize Republicans who were saying one thing behind closed doors and then refusing to state the truth about an unstable man who was reckless and dangerous in public.

And I feel like the party elders in the Democratic Party and many of the people in the White House are absolutely guilty of the same thing.

Some table stakes here.

I believe, and I think 45% of the electorate believes, even if he's in a coma and can just occasionally wink, that he would be a superior president in America and the world would be better off, regardless of his cognitive abilities or lack thereof.

No arguing he's a good man, in my opinion, will go down.

And this term will go down as one of the more positive presidential terms in history.

Let's focus on if and how he gets elected.

And I believe those moderates and the people, young people,

deciding based on impressions of who they want to lead, we'll see someone who is in severe cognitive decline.

There's basically the definition of an old white guy.

And I don't think, I think he's going to get absolutely slaughtered in the election.

Yeah, wow.

He moved to slaughter, not close.

Well, it always tightens, but Kara, the polls I'm seeing, I just think here's the, here's the problem.

Despite how smart we are, despite all of the resources, despite how incredibly talented his staff is, despite what a good person he is, despite the threat of Trump, Darth Vader, Lex Luther, none of them hold a candle to

the devastating, unnegotiable,

100%,

always undefeated foe villain that is biology.

Best we can hope for here is that it doesn't get worse and it's already way too bad.

And there's already some great talking points and more denial.

Hey, let's all go back into denial.

I'm not going to judge him on 90 minutes.

I'm going to judge him on the last three and a half years.

Yeah, that's their thing.

That's a great

90-minute.

That's a great line, but here's the problem.

The voters who decide whether he's president or specifically whether Trump is president or not will make their decision on the last three and a half years.

They'll make it on what they think is going to happen the next four and a half.

That's correct.

But let me just put out some things.

A lot of donors, pundits, and editorial boards are calling for Biden to step aside.

The Biden campaign, though, said they've raised 33 million since the debate, with $26 million coming from grassroots donations.

That's interesting.

Other hand, the debate viewership, 51.3 million people tuned in to watch the debate live.

Only 3.9 million were between the ages of 18 and 34.

So that's a lot, a lot more than I thought.

They're putting up an ad, the Biden People, a new 60-second ad, which the president acknowledges age concerns, pledges to get back up.

You know,

it's really,

it's a, they're trying their hardest not to.

Jill Biden just gave a interview to Vogue, and she added to it saying, we're going to get back up.

That's their, I think, and she's particularly stubborn, and she's the one that would have an effect on Joe Biden.

And it does remind me a little bit of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Diane Feinstein.

There's nobody there to say anything.

We'll get into what should be done, but it seems like they're doubling down on riding with Biden.

I don't, look, until they decide not to, it's like a board.

A board has the full-throated support.

The CEO always has the full-throated support of the board until they don't.

It sounds like if you look at the logistics here, there's no way out other than him deciding himself and people showing up.

Supposedly, everyone's like, well, could Obama go speak to him?

Supposedly they have a strained relationship ever since he blocked him out of the way of running against Trump in 16 in favor of Hillary.

Basically, it's his family.

He won't listen to anybody else.

So I spent a few hours on the phone with a pretty senior senator on Friday discussing this.

And he was very blunt with me.

He said they are absolutely in a state of panic and they feel a bit chagrined at how everyone was in a state of denial here.

And this confirmed everyone's worst fears.

And it's already, I see it happening already again.

Everyone's like, he had an off day.

It was a cold.

You know how they're speaking about him?

They're speaking about him the same way you talk about an old man or someone who's undergone cancer.

You know, well, he has good and bad days.

That's now how we're describing him.

And this is the front line.

80 years ago, we were the front line against fascism, America's resources, generosity, innovation, military complex, democracy, rule of law, and general character.

And the fact that we produce so much innovation and capital to fund the world's greatest fighting force, and we still have people who are willing to put on a uniform and fight for something bigger than them.

We are the front line.

And the front line is now needs to push back on a gender apartheid that is erupting everywhere around the world a lurch to the right to fascism a

an increasingly aggressive and invasive russia that china is keeping an eye on to see if anyone will hold the line against them and the reality is we just can have a feeble old man in cognitive decline

leading the charge here.

And any young person, any swing voter is, I believe, is just not going to vote for the guy.

Let's talk about what could be done because stepping aside, I just talked to Heather Cox Richardson, and she's like, he's not stepping aside, just FYI.

The ability to get him to step aside has always resulted historically in

the incumbent party losing in any case.

Gavin Newsom has said he would never turn my back on Biden.

Gretchen Whitmer has disavowed the draft Gretsch movement.

Both of them, I've texted both and they said the same.

Like, I mean, this is the line they're doing.

And I know you said it's up until they didn't, but the complications are quite quite significant.

The other thing is, as many people pointed out, you've got to go through Kamala Harris at the same time, too, to like move her aside as a whole nother sort of angering different constituencies.

So the getting to that point is incredibly complex.

And of course, the Republicans, Philadelphia Inquirer had that Republicans should dump Trump for all the things he said, but they're not going to

move aside their.

He's gone.

Right, I get it.

I get it.

But let me just say, they are not going,

the complications of replacing him are quite significant.

100%.

My understanding is, and I think we're in the same place here, is I've spent a lot of time looking at game theory and talking to people.

The bottom line, it all kind of comes down to the same thing.

He's got to decide to withdraw because you go to the convention, the delegates are fiduciaries

for other parties who have said,

we pledge our vote to President Joe Biden.

So for them to create chaos at the party and decide that they might not go through with who they are supposed to allocate their delegates to, I'm not even sure they can do that.

But it would be very, it would be chaos.

Everyone I've said said, we would be in such uncharted territory.

Everything I've heard, and tell me if you agree with this because you have better connections in D.C., is that he has to decide to withdraw.

He has to decide.

I've said that.

And I don't think he will.

I think he will not.

Even if he does, even if he does, then what?

It would have to be soon.

He would have to, to, and then the next question is, well, wouldn't he have to stand behind his vice president?

Or is he going to say to the first non-white woman on the ticket, no, just kidding, I had such terrible judgment.

You shouldn't be the president.

You were never fit to be president.

I mean, how does it play out?

Is it immediately he calls for a debate?

He rallies behind

Governor Whitmer and says, it's time for a female president and campaigns with her.

You know, the craziest thing I heard was

Obama becoming vice president.

Like, it was all you should hear all these theories, this crazy theories.

It's a great idea.

It's supposed to be going to like each other now.

No,

if we were just, okay, I'm just saying.

I had a whiteboard and I was going through probabilities.

If your sole objective was to not have Trump in office, if that was your sole objective, and you were putting party politics and the reality of the situation aside, you would have the Democrats nominate.

Mitt Romney.

Yeah.

Think about it.

Interesting.

It'll never happen.

They didn't like him last time.

If your sole objective was for Chubb not to be, you get a decent number of the Democrats to vote for him and a decent number of Republicans would vote for Roman.

I don't know about that.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think, you know, the problem is with all these new candidates is none of them are vetted except for Kamala, essentially.

And so there's all new, fresh things.

Gavin's got a massive stuff behind him.

And, you know, Whitmer will, they're certainly popular in their states, but they've got, Gavin's got a load of negatives around him.

Gretchen has not been tested as people don't know who she is, right?

And then when you go to, you know, like the person I was thinking was Mark Cuban, right?

Like everyone knows him.

But again, the vetting on him would be brutal, I suspect.

I think Whitmer or Newsom, I think if he were to decide,

look, folks, it's time for new leadership.

I've lost the step.

I want to do what's best for the country.

I'm throwing my weight behind, you know, America is spoken.

I'm throwing my weight behind

Whitmer or Newsome.

There needs to be a debate.

They need to pick their vice president.

I think Vice President Harris has been a great VP.

She hasn't resonated with the public as we'd hope.

Let's be honest.

I think the polling immediately shows that candidate up five to nine points.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

We'll see.

It is really kind of people are sort of losing their minds.

It's really funny.

Everyone is like totally like opposite.

Like it's, I was trying to be like, well, on one hand and people like, you can't do this.

Whatever side you're on, like you have to get rid of them.

You have to keep it.

Oh, in the shaming complex, if you put up a thing.

I was like, well, it's really complicated

i'd love to see i'd love to see a president newson a big picture of uh uh gavin newsom and people like your ageism is disgusting i mean people yeah the shaming complex to try and get everyone well your ageism is disgusting but keep going

trust me i have worse attributes and my retort is i am an ageist and so is biology anyways look

This is,

this is an incredible quagmire.

It strikes me that it has to be his decision.

It has to be his decision fast.

I don't think Jilly is letting him.

I think Jill is running the show at this point.

I'm feeling, it's very Edith Wilson vibes happening here with her.

It's very weak and bernies.

It's very Nancy Reagan.

Edith Wilson was running the fucking country for a while when he had a stroke.

I don't know if you recall that.

But here's the thing.

We're going to figure out a way.

We're going to figure out the only candidate who could probably lose to Trump.

And that is someone who is in severe cognitive decline.

I will note one other thing.

Guess who didn't show up to any of the debates and is gone, gone AWOL?

Melania.

She's out.

She apparently doesn't want to live in the White House anymore either, by the way.

Really?

Yeah.

I feel like Melania's got the right angle here.

Whatsoever.

Yeah, she didn't show up at the debate.

She's such a mystery.

No, she's not.

I don't think she's very smart.

Anyway, all right, Scott, let's go on a quick break and we'll be come back to the Supreme Court's other major ruling today and what it means for social media companies.

And we'll be back with a friend of Pivot, Kim Scott, and why companies should embrace radical candor and radical respect in the office.

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Scott, we're back.

And more Supreme Court news.

Of course, sending disputes over social media laws in Texas, Florida, back down to the lower courts.

As a reminder, the Texas law prohibits companies from removing content based on their author's viewpoint.

And Florida law bars companies from removing politicians from their sites.

The Supreme Court said the lower courts did not conduct the proper analysis of the First Amendment challenges.

The laws will remain blocked while lower courts sort out the constitutional issues.

So they've knocked it back down.

So, so far, I guess social media companies are safe, I guess.

It goes back down.

It gets all, they've decided not to rule on this thing.

They've ruled on a couple of these things, but not this one.

Yeah, I don't think that's I don't understand the ramifications of the ruling.

I think it's just they're going to let the, I think, I think they're correct.

They should not make a decision here.

It's, it's, look, these are, I think, eventually will get overturned by

constitutional issues around First Amendment, that these companies have a First Amendment.

They themselves have their First Amendment rules.

And so this is the government,

Texas and Florida, intervening in the First Amendment rights of these companies.

They can do whatever they want.

They're private companies.

They shouldn't, I don't know.

I think that's what they're doing.

They're kicking the can.

Anyway, we'll see what that happens.

But mostly, in general, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of government keeping their mitts off of social media companies, as they did earlier with the one where the government can talk to social media companies about risks, et cetera.

One thing is, I just wanted to ask you very quickly, Amazon is planning to launch a new budget storefront to compete with Xi'an and Timu.

The storefront was announced at the closed-door event for sellers in China.

Many items will be under $20, and Amazon will ship products directly from China to the U.S.

within 9 to 11 days.

It's not announced a launch date, but we'll begin accepting products in the fall.

I think it's probably smart to do this, correct?

I'm shocked it took them this long.

The biggest trend, the biggest trend in what I'll call,

I don't know,

big tech are the firms that

any firm that's added more than $50 billion to market capitalization within a 12-month period has one thing in common, and that is it's an asset-like business model.

And whether it's Uber, whether it's Airbnb, and obviously the best example is NVIDIA that decided they didn't even need a chip plant to make chips.

Basically, Shein, and to a lesser extent, Timu,

use machine learning and AI to look at activity on a website.

And based on that activity on their website, they can immediate the software, the brains, you know, this villain, if you will, almost, says, this is how many tie-dye tops are going to be in demand in the next 24 hours.

It immediately figures out, again, using technology in a nanosecond, which of their factories should produce these tops and exactly how many.

It immediately starts sending messages to the transportation infrastructure.

And using all of this, without stores, without warehouses, without factories, without trucks, without any assets, it's able to get people apparel for 40 to 60 percent less than, say, Zara or HM.

And in an economy where young people are making less money, but still have a desire to express individuality coming into their mating years, you are seeing Shein.

This year will be bigger than Amazon in apparel and next year will be bigger than Walmart in apparel and be the biggest apparel company in the world.

So this makes all sorts of sense to have to get into this category that I think you can loosely call on-demand retail.

It's sort of beyond fast fashion, right?

It's it's even faster, I guess.

I call it's not fast fashion, it's on-demand fashion.

And they don't, there's no, I mean, the thing about this, Kara, is when you talk about efficiencies and boring things, there's almost no returns because it's so inexpensive.

There's almost no sales or waste because they can perfectly calibrate demand.

Yeah, you have

you're able to get products from China to a home in Wisconsin.

It comes in these like plastic bags and a kid for 80 bucks can get three dresses, two pairs of jeans and four tops.

Would you outline the criticism you get when you push this company for people to understand?

Yeah, that I'm that I'm a climate terrorist, that I'm not addressing, I'm ignoring everything from forced labor to the environmental disaster that is fast fashion.

And that, you know, that I'm a total fucking hypocrite when I pretend to be a progressive and I'm out there investing in a company that is bad for the environment.

And

my defense is I believe that young people need inexpensive things and much of this rhetoric is being fueled by the incumbents.

And when, and I have gotten to know the chairman and the vice chairman of this company pretty well.

They do no business in China.

They have a huge supply chain in China.

And what I would say is, at least they've convinced me that whatever standards you want to put on Amazon, Nike, or Apple, they will comply with and try and set the bar.

And everything about forced labor, cotton coming out of a certain region, they now source their cotton out of Brazil.

And whenever anybody starts complaining about Shein or I say, okay, now do Nike, now do Apple.

Yeah, I would agree.

That's why I wanted you to say this, because I think one of the things that you were just talking about, fast fashion versus on-demand fashion.

I think I've always thought it should be, we should know exactly what we need to make so we can be more efficient rather than this spray and pray kind of thing where they just have so much stuff and then they throw it out or they redo it or it gets, it goes into landfill or goes to other countries, you know, where they sort out t-shirts and things like that.

I've been trying, you know, what to do with these things and how to, we spent a lot of time figuring out what to do with the clothes after we have too many of it because it's not correctly judged on how much they should make.

I always thought fashion should have been much more, everything should be more efficient, food production, everything else.

And this is one way to, this is the way to it.

But I like the idea of on-demand retail, which I've always thought made sense more than anything else.

Well, I use the wrong language.

People accuse me of being environmentally, you know, not

responsible, not a, not a, not climate.

But I take the other side of this.

I think young people need more stuff for less money.

And I also think China and the U.S.

need to kiss and make up and start doing business together.

I think there are real concerns around the amount of resources that go into into making a t-shirt, the amount of water it takes.

I think there are real issues around a consumptive society that is embraced fast fashion.

What I say to people is,

these guys have fooled me into believing that whatever standards you want to apply on the entire industry, they will match or try and be better.

But there are real issues.

But like I said, now do Apple, now do Nike.

I like these guys.

I love.

That's a really good point.

I love that a 24-year-old that is making less money than me or someone in their 30s can actually feel pretty good about themselves and order stuff for not a lot of money.

And by the way, they aren't taking into account just how incredibly

hard on the environment returns are or

what happens to the carbon footprint when you have to transfer stuff to a truck, then to a warehouse, then to a distribution center.

This shit goes straight to the home.

Yeah, I think it's very easy to, that's why I wanted you to bring those up.

Anyway, in any case, we'll see.

Amazon needs to be here for sure.

And we'll be just, it's a good way for them to be doing products themselves and it's inevitable that they had to compete here because these these companies are seeing huge growth and so they have to compete and that's what Amazon does and that's what they do better best in any of all the things they do can I just give you one stat sure

just one stat according to sales force one in five dollars spent this upcoming holiday season will be on Shein or Timu oh that's amazing I mean these two companies are the holidays in the largest economy in the world yep yep um anyway let's bring in in our friend of Pivot.

Kim Scott is a former Google and Apple executive.

She's also the author of a new book, Radical Respect, How to Work Together Better.

Welcome, by the way.

Thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

So your first book, Radical Candor, put forth this idea of a no bullshit management philosophy.

It caught on with a lot of companies, particularly in tech.

Do you see the new book as a sequel?

Because respect is different than candor, because candor can sometimes not be be respectful or a re-evaluation of radical candor.

Yeah, I think it's a prequel, really, because radical candor is all about caring personally and challenging directly at the same time.

But if you don't have that core respect for someone, then you're not going to care about them and you're not going to bother.

You're not going to waste your breath challenging them.

And, you know, respect has two definitions.

One is something you have to earn.

I have to earn respect for my leadership skills, let's say.

But there's another definition of respect, which is this sort of unconditional respect, this basic regard that we owe each other for our shared humanity.

And that's really what

radical respect is about.

So what you write about employees needing to address bias and bullying, because radical candor can sometimes turn into that.

I'm just telling you how I feel.

You know what I mean?

But you also get the ROI on speaking up.

Explain how that.

works.

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the dangers of a two-word title is that it's prone to misinterpretation.

So, very often, after radical candor came out, I'd be working with a team, and someone would charge into a room, and they'd say, in the spirit of radical candor, and then they would act like a garden variety jerk.

And that's not the spirit of radical candor, actually.

Radical candor is about saying what you think and at the same time, showing this person that you care about them.

So, you know, I think there's this tendency that we all have to believe that we have to choose between being a really successful jerk and being a really nice but unsuccessful.

And that's a false choice.

We don't have to make that choice.

Nice to meet you, Kim.

I love this topic and I think a lot about it.

Do you feel that a lot of the some of it warranted, some of it probably overboard focus on what types of words to use, when you might be unconsciously creating a hostile work environment, how to address people with different backgrounds that appreciates their unique lived experience, that some of that gets in the way of having open, honest dialogue?

It certainly can, but it doesn't have to.

I think that

everyone,

I had a mentor once who said, Look, everyone on the planet has a red word, where if you say that word, that person's not going to hear another word you say.

And if we're going to work well together, we got to learn how to understand what each other's red words are.

And so I think the idea is you don't have there I think we want this like list of words that are safe and not safe and there's no such list you can say stuff to me that you can't say to someone else and what what radical respect is about is learning how to get along with the people who you're actually working with as opposed to like reducing all language to some kind of least common denominator I think about this a lot and as a younger manager and CEO I used to you know pride myself in saying I'm really into candor, which is this is, I think, was quite frankly almost the definition of being a little bit toxic and excusing my,

and what I have found is that, and I don't know if these are the right rules, but one, I have a different approach with young people.

I find young people need watering.

And when you're running the company, to be

really candid sometimes is to ruin that person's weekend and to create tremendous anxiety and not be very kind.

I also don't, I don't provide feedback on things they can't change.

now for example i i and maybe i should i don't say to people you lack the presence to be in this position or you just don't innately have the intellect

i i never provide feedback on something they can't change because i think it's mean i i think they go home and they beat themselves up and they

I mean, I worry that the notion of radical candor sounds like it makes sense and we're here to make money.

And I do believe people, I think constructive, thoughtful feedback is a gift.

It's a gift and people appreciate it.

And they actually, I think when it's well done, appreciate it as much or even more sometimes than compensation.

But there is a level of

comity of man, especially with young people, where I've gone full circle.

I pride myself, quite frankly, on I know, you know, on not being as candid.

and trying to be kinder and water them and let them grow.

So you're now to radical respect, Scott.

Now you're to this one because Kim talks about something called brutal ineffectiveness by leadership.

Yes.

Explain what that is.

Radical, brutal.

This is all such PR marketing words.

Sorry.

Yeah, Kim.

Yeah, yeah.

Radical.

Radical.

There you go.

Yeah, I had no, well, radical wasn't really such a word when radical candor came out.

And, you know, you could, look, if I were going to be more precise, I probably would have called the book compassionate candor.

But I don't think that would have sold as many books.

i mean radical candor is sort of redundant right uh anyways but but i i i apologize long-winded way question what what are your thoughts and and talk about brutal ineffectiveness which i think scott was getting at there yeah yeah and practice so

look i have two i mean as i was writing the book my editor would often say care personally question mark question mark question mark because it's it's it's fun to keep going out on that challenge directly dimension of of of radical candor.

So, I'm gonna, there's two, two different questions here.

Scott, I think to your question,

I don't think it's like with young people, you have because they're young.

I think it's about power, not necessarily about age.

And so, if you have more power in the situation, whether you're the younger or the older person in the room, I think it's important to learn how to lay that power down a little bit so that you can get on a level playing field and talk to the person.

I also think that you said something really important, which is

if it's something that a person cannot change, then there's no point in complaining about it.

Either you can work around it or you can't.

And if you can work around it, then you try to create a situation for them where they can be successful.

If you can't, then you fire them.

And that may seem harsh, but just because they have one trait that isn't going to work in that situation doesn't mean they're a worthless human being.

You help them find a place where they can be successful.

So, Kara, your question about

brutal ineffectiveness or brutal incompetence, I think we're seeing a fair amount of that today.

Give me examples too, by the way.

You know, I think Twitter, Elon Musk's X, is an excellent example of brutal incompetence.

I think that the,

you know, I love a good two by two.

So, radical respect is about optimizing for collaboration and honoring everyone's individuality at the same time.

Kind of a kind of

team where the strength of the team is the individual, the strength of the individual is the team.

Brutal incompetence is the opposite.

That's where you're demanding conformity and you're optimizing for coercion.

You're creating

a dominance hierarchy.

And, you know, it seems like that would almost never happen because most people, I mean, there are exceptions, but most that's not most people's intention.

And yet, so often we wind up in these brutally incompetent situations.

And in fact, I tell stories in Radical Respect where I, as the leader, created a brutal, a situation of brutal incompetence.

Certainly that was not my intention, but I think very often as when you start a company, you think, ah, you know, if I'm in charge, all this bullshit that happens everywhere else won't happen.

And it will happen unless you design your systems very carefully so that it doesn't happen.

Well, I think it is is about people who think they know better and they've been right a lot of the time i've noticed that in tech is we've been right the first six times and therefore we're right this time and there is something to knowing the right thing to do i mean i veer between it a lot i'm like i kind of know what the right choice is um and and in in tolerating other people's opinions you're like oh you're just listening to them even though you're going to do what you want right presumably because sometimes experience does matter and i assume in elon's case and i'll take his side it's like he's always been right.

Like, it's the way I want to do it.

If you don't like it, get out.

And a lot of companies, I mean, Microsoft was like that for years and it worked, right?

Because it can work.

Brutality can work.

Yeah, yes, it does work in the short term.

But I mean, eventually Microsoft had to change their culture in order to succeed.

It was going to kill them.

Brutal incompetence will work until it kills you.

And that's the problem with it.

If you want to build something that's going to last, then you need to do better than brutal incompetence.

So do you think

another hack, tell me if you think this

makes sense?

And that is in order to try and get the nuance here, because what you're saying is there's a lot of nuance here and delivered well, this can be incredibly constructive, but a few wrong turns and it can go from a, you know, from a feature to a bug.

I find with this type of quote unquote candor feedback that it really helps to write it down first, to lay out your arguments and either for I always have my employees do their own self-review, then I afford them the review after.

But I make sure I'm going through stuff and making sure that I choose my words, the exact words, carefully, because communication is with the listener.

And oftentimes, when you just go in and say, okay, these are kind of, I generally have an idea of their pluses and minuses, and you're talking about their compensation.

And maybe it's the only time in a year they get feedback, which is half their entire career if they're 24.

You really want to be deliberate and purposeful as opposed to just going in and winging it.

And I find that,

so the question is, does it be,

is writing this stuff out a tool to help find that nuance that you're talking about?

I think it can be.

If what you're managing for is to make sure that

you don't say something you later regret, it can be very helpful to write it down.

I also think for

it can be very, if you want to try to force yourself to say something like if if you're managing against so radical candor is care personally challenged directly when you do do both it's radical candor when you challenge but you don't show you care it's obnoxious aggression so writing it down can help you prevent obnoxious aggression but but jotting it down can also help you prevent ruinous empathy which is what happens in that upper left-hand quadrant where you show you care but you forget to challenge and this is something that I would do because I'm very prone to ruinous empathy.

I was raised in the South.

It's like really important for me to be nice.

And so if I was going into a meeting with someone and I was afraid I wouldn't say anything, that was what I was managing against.

I would jot down the three or four things I needed to tell them on a post-it note and put it in my pocket.

Not because I was going to pull the post-it note out and

look at it, but because I knew it was there and I would feel like a wimp if I didn't say the thing.

I would feel like I had failed if I didn't say the thing.

And that was very helpful.

I also think there's another nuance in terms of writing things down, though, is that radical candor, the best radical candor I ever got in my whole career, always happened in these impromptu two-minute conversations, like in between meetings.

And the performance reviews then became sort of performance management.

And that was useful if I had had a series of these impromptu two-minute conversations.

So I think a lot of radical candor is about remembering to put your phone away,

shut your computer and have a real conversation with someone.

Yeah.

You wrote in the New York Times recently that said a number of HR executives are, quote, dreading this election because it's going to kill productivity for months.

It's been like that for years now, by the way, in the office.

It's not a new, whatever it happens to be, whether it's Gaza or COVID or whatever it happens to be, everything at work is now so fraught, gay rights, everything,

DEI.

So how companies have shifted back and forth about handling political discussions?

If you could very briefly, how do they, it's like, it doesn't seem to get any better.

There's no good way to do this.

Either shut them down, which doesn't work because it's omnipresent in people's minds, or let it go.

And then you have disasters that happen to Google many times, for example.

Lots of companies.

So shutting it down seems to be the move now.

Let's just leave politics at the door kind of thing.

Yeah.

and lots of luck with that.

I mean, you cannot control what people are going to talk about.

I think what you

and you can't control what people believe either.

Those are both giant oversteps as leaders.

But what you can do is you can set some norms for how we're going to discuss things, how we're going to treat each other.

We're going to treat each other with respect,

which doesn't mean, by the way, that we have to agree.

We can disagree vehemently.

We can hold people accountable.

But we still have to remember that respect.

And that was a lesson actually I learned when I was working at Google.

My whole team, with the exception of one person, was super liberal.

And so we would say things assuming, you know, very disrespectful things and just ignore the fact that there was one guy who disagreed with us.

And he eventually came to me and he said, you know,

I don't feel included on the team.

And that didn't mean I had to agree with him,

but like

it did mean I had to treat him respectfully.

Yeah, right.

That's true.

Scott?

I'd just be curious to hear your thoughts on firing.

So firing people is the worst part of being a manager, but it's absolutely part of being a manager.

And I think it's important to remember, you know, assuming you've given someone a lot of those impromptu conversations and you've done

all the in writing stuff, when it comes time to actually have that conversation, I think it's important to remember that

this job doesn't suck and this person doesn't suck, but this job sucks for this person and can be really helpful to imagine a job where they could do their best work because not everybody is suited for every job.

But I don't think, I think it's so tempt, because it's so painful to fire someone, it's tempting to say, well, I have to fire them because they're a worthless human being.

And then you're going to treat them disrespectfully.

And that's bad for them, but it's also bad for you because that dramatically increases the likelihood that you give them every incentive to want to sue you or whatever.

So you want to make sure that

even in that conversation, that you're having it in a way that is respectful.

We talked about the President Biden post-debate and some difficult conversations he's likely having.

Thank God.

With or without getting into your own politics, obviously, you just said what you pretty much are.

But how could radical candidate and radical effect be effective in the case of Biden advisors right now?

How would you take it if you say, oh, man, I want you to go and I think you should stay?

How would you do each of those things?

That's my final question.

So I think speaking truth to power is hard

for everybody.

And I think the people I know who've been most successful are those who are able to step it up.

And so I think the

The way that I would, you want me to like role play this?

Yeah, I'm just biking the visor now.

So,

you know, I would talk about

the many successes of this administration, and I would then say, you know,

that

debate performance is going to make us lose.

And if you care about the country, you'll step down.

We need a different leader for this election.

Okay.

I think I would say it very bluntly.

If I were encouraging him to stay, you want me to try that?

Yeah.

Try that too.

I'm going to pretend that I believe that is the right thing.

I would say, look,

you know, first of all, you need to learn how to shut your mouth when you're not speaking.

Like, don't catch flies sitting there.

And I would show him exactly

what that looked like.

And

I would.

be very compassionate.

I mean, not only, you know,

is this

sort of a venue that's not set up for anybody to succeed.

So I'd have some compassion for that.

And I would also have some compassion for the fact that he's got a speech impediment.

And then I would talk about what we're going to do to make sure that he doesn't mix up his words.

Yeah.

All right.

Anything else, Scott?

No, I love this, Kim.

I'm fascinated by it.

And

I think this notion of candor is a really interesting one because the immediate sort of go-to is candor is a good thing.

And the reality is you have to balance candor being,

I think of it as a triangle.

There's candor, there's effectiveness, and sometimes the two don't go hand in hand.

And there's also, at the end of the day, kindness, because if you're trying to build an organization that provides economic security for people such that they can provide for their

families and be happy, and you're an asshole, then why do you have a company at all?

It's really an interesting topic.

But anyways,

I love your work, and I think it's a super interesting topic.

Anyway, Kim, thank you so much.

And again, the book is Radical Respect, How to Work Together Better.

Thank you so much.

Enjoyed the conversation.

Thanks, Kim.

Thanks.

All right, Scott, what's your red word?

What's your red word?

My red word?

Yeah.

What drives you crazy?

Well, my safe word when someone gets really freaky with me is maybe.

Yeah.

I don't know if I have a red word.

Do I have to?

I do not have a real trigger word.

I don't know.

It'll set you off.

Yeah, no.

It'll set you off.

I get less and less set off over time, I have to say.

Anyway, we'll be back for wins and fails.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Would you like to go first or second?

You go first, Cara.

I got to say a win.

I got sent a very lovely box of, remember we talked about our skincare regimen and how beautiful my skin is?

It's a Sara V folks sent me a box of stuff and they said, we heard you mention on Pivot that you could use some skincare products, but Sara V fixed you for it.

So they sent me some.

I already already buy it.

So it's just kind of funny.

I use Servie products and it made me laugh.

It made me laugh.

Cause like sometimes when we do things on the show, people send us stuff and they, I always find it very funny.

I find it very funny.

Anyway, thank you, Sera V.

The fail, I think, is this Supreme Court being so political.

I think they are not doing themselves any favor, not trying to

show comedy with each other, right?

Not finding any common ground where they could maybe do a few things together in a little, you know what I mean?

Like, I think it's, they are lifetime appointments.

They do not have to be this political.

And I put that

at the feet of John Roberts and it's not being able to control this group of people in some ways.

Speaking of radical respect, radical candor, they just, they should be better.

This group should be better.

And it's so not better now.

And I didn't always think the Supreme Court was better, but I do think in some cases, this is the institution that has to find.

And I don't share that feeling about the federal judiciary, who I think are all all trying and struggling in a lot of ways, but the increased politicization of judges is really,

it feels like it's the last backstop, and it doesn't feel like it's the last backstop.

So I'd say they really have, this term has been a failure of the Supreme Court in a really significant way.

Fastballs are flying into the stands.

Right.

Yeah.

So my fail is a lack of ageism.

I think we need more ageism on the low end.

I like it.

I think it's ridiculous that as people's prefrontal cortex has not grown as they're going through puberty.

As all this evidence came in, that Tim Cook has decided not to age gate his devices, that Cinder Pachai continues to speak in hushed tones like he gives a flying fuck about the Commonwealth and continues to not age gate his platforms and radicalize young men and depress teens.

I think Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Samberg will go down as history and history as people who made more money while damaging the mental health of more young people.

And the fact that we didn't move earlier to recognize that 15-year-olds do not have the modulation, the capacity, the maturity to handle this technology is a failure.

Now, going to the flip side, it is insane that just as the brain is not developed at 16 to believe that 81-year-olds can be the front line in the fight for democracy.

and to go into denial and to surround him and to try and pretend that the fact that he's not doing many pressers is and all this bullshit.

Well, I was with him in private and he had command of the room and he was sharp and he was engaged.

Jesus Christ.

And then to have everyone push back and say it's ageism.

Exactly.

It's ageism.

We need age gating at the lower end and for God's sakes, we need age gating at the higher end.

80 is too old to be in a position of this power.

You could not have an 80-year-old be the chef at the White House, be in any cabinet post.

You couldn't have an an 80-year-old in a junior security position trying to protect the White House.

But we decide to surround this person with denial and accusations of ageism and potentially threaten our ability to, again, be the front line.

We need more ageism.

We need to recognize biology.

Ageism.

Scott goes doubles radically goes down on the bottom.

Folks, biology doesn't care.

what you think about ageism.

It just doesn't care.

14-year-olds cannot handle snap and social media and an 81 year old does not know how to think on his feet and command the sixth fleet.

Enough already.

People, their brains change.

Biology is an unforgiving foe.

We need more ageism.

We need term limits and we absolutely need to age gate social media and devices.

That's my fail.

We need more ageism.

My win is ageism.

I mean, woe was me on a boat in Greece.

This was a tough weekend for me and a lot of people I know.

We were just so,

I'm just so, quite frankly, I'm just freaked out about another truck presidency.

But anyways, my win is a couple wonderful things took my mind off this, whatever this is.

Team England was down one to nothing in the round of 16 knockout in the European Championships.

And a kid named Jude Bellingham, who literally just turned 21 from Real Madrid, did a bicycle kick in the 90th minute to tie it up.

And I mean, the Galloway household just went apeshit.

It's a little thing.

Oh, it really is.

And then in minute 95, Harry Kane, who plays for my, my oldest son's favorite team, Tottenham, put in a header.

It was just so,

and no disrespect to Slovakia, they played an amazing game.

This was just so much fun and so wonderful.

And I was so happy for Team England.

And, and then if you want to feel better

for two minutes, and I just, I thought to myself, myself, I saw this thing and I thought, this is exactly what I needed at this exact moment.

Go to YouTube and type in Michael J.

Fox and Cold Play.

And you get to see Michael J.

Fox jamming with Cold Play.

It is wonderful.

It is just wonderful.

I'm not, I'm not even trying to explain it because I'm sick of crying on the show.

But if you want to feel better, if you'd like to have, just feel, just feel 10% better today,

go to YouTube, Cold play Michael J.

Fox.

Yep, I would, that was really lovely.

I spend a lot of time, you know, looking at fun videos.

There's a lot of them on my threads feed for some reason.

I tweet some, I mean, I thread some of them.

And I have to say, I'm so happy.

Like, someone's like, why are you so calm?

I go, I just watched someone arrange flowers.

And they were like, you're ignoring the world.

I'm like, I'm not.

I just like to watch people thread, make flower arrangements, and it makes me happy.

And it was interesting because, you know, right after that debate, everyone was in a free fall of emotion themselves.

And I just, by 10 the next morning, I'm like, this is it.

This is what we got.

Let's move on.

I think I'll go watch some flower ranging.

I'm not ignoring it, people.

I'm telling you, you've got to get in the right frame of mind to beat it, right?

You can't be in the depths of despair at all times.

You just can't.

I am because it's like,

this is our world now.

So like, do something about it.

Otherwise, you know, you can't live in pure horror at all times.

Although I think you should be worried at the same time.

Anyway, I'm glad.

I'm glad that that Michael J.

Fox thing is utterly worth watching.

In any case, we want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551-Pivot.

Okay, Scott, that is the show.

We'll be back on Friday with more.

Scott, will you read us out?

Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Andrew Todd engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mil Severio, and Kate Gallagher.

Nishak Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care.

Have a great rest of the week.

This month on Explain It To Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well: collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

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Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It To Me, presented by Pureleaf.

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