Market Mayhem, Iran Protests, and Guest Jessica Yellin

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

How are you doing?

How's it going?

Did you listen to my new podcast already?

Kara, Kara, you know we're not interested in each other's work outside of Pivot.

No, that's not true.

That's not true.

How many of my books have you read?

All of them.

I just finished A Drift.

Yes, I have.

Yes, I have it.

I haven't.

i'm showing clara through it yes i am and i made alex read it yes i do yes i do thank you for that uh no i have not listened to it although i'm excited about it i'm saving are you are you saving it for you're not listening to it at all are you you know it's chris cuomo

really the interview yes that what your inaugural pod is chris yes yes it is and the next one is is hillary clinton okay so let's let's unpack that so yeah uh i've i've met chris once and i i didn't listen to a word he says because he's very handsome.

That was my first observation.

Does he come across handsome on yes, and he was wearing a very muscly shirt, a t-shirt when we were doing the interview.

Yeah, but it doesn't have an impact on Kara.

So give us a preview.

Well, you know, it's interesting because a lot of people have feelings about him because of what he did and how he got fired from CNN.

So we talked a lot about that.

And he's trying this new thing called News Nation.

I think it's called News Nation, something like that.

Anyway, it's this company from the superstation WGN, it used to be.

So they're trying to create a news news organization that is down the line, aiming at the sort of middle of people who don't like Fox or MSNBC or CNN, that kind of thing.

And so, which is interesting because he sort of was the king of that at CNN.

And so he wants to hear from all kinds of people.

He was making the argument that he did before.

We talked a lot about the thing that happened with his brother and the decisions he made, all of which were bad for him.

We talked, it was a lot about

sort of ethics and journalism, the changing journalism scene, you know, the price he paid, I think, for what he did.

And we had a disagreement about, you know, he said he would do it over again.

And I said I would never do such a thing for my brother.

I wouldn't advise him and then not tell.

Thanks, Jeffrey Swisher.

Well, I think he'd agree with me.

If he was involved in something like that and I was behind the scenes without telling people

that I was doing that, I wouldn't do it.

It's obviously cool.

Anyway, we talked about it, but I let him.

talk about his reasons.

So it was good.

It was very good.

I suspect you'd agree with him more than me.

I think you're right.

So some just inside baseball, as you know, I had a show on CNN Plus, Kira.

I know this.

I know this.

Yeah, you and seven other people.

So

the two things you hear about Chris Cuomo inside the walls of Time.

May I interject?

I watched both of them, but go ahead.

Keep going.

I had six episodes.

Anyways.

Did six go up?

Six, I think five got aired.

Anyways, back to you.

So

one is after all that stuff went down, people really felt like he behaved

inappropriately.

That they just he was universally, as far as I could tell, really disliked after that whole thing went down.

People felt a lot of anger and resentment that he really damaged the network and that he was he just didn't acquit himself well.

The other thing that I didn't know

with the lawsuit, you mean?

With the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, the way he was.

Because he brought Zucker down, really.

That's what he says he did not drop.

Yeah, that he just became destroying everything in his path.

He became just burning the the village to save it, so to speak.

And the other thing is

that he is one of the most talented people that anyone's ever worked with.

That people found.

Broadcaster, he's a very gifted person.

That supposedly

the monitors could go out and it would be no problem for him.

That some people, if the monitor went out,

that was it.

They were dead in the water.

You wouldn't even know when the monitor goes out with

Chris that he was at the bottom.

Very talented broadcaster.

Look,

he gets to come back like a lot of people don't, right?

In terms of where he's coming from.

And I do admire anybody who does new things.

He's trying this news, uh, News Nation thing, which I think is interesting.

And we certainly need more outlets.

Um, I think I like not redemption stories, but an attempt at redemption.

I like those stories.

Um, and so we'll see.

And then we also added Naima as on the show.

She's sort of a ringmaster a little bit as we go through it.

So there's nice.

She's on here.

There's lots of pieces to the show.

It's many features on the show.

and i do an essay at the end which is good um

a little a little essay a little touch of care a little touch a care this one it's something you didn't want to talk about i'll have the swisher souffle

and a bottle of wine to taste that

i i'm going to mention you a lot i mentioned you several times during this show um i think it's going to be a nice click with pivot i think it's a nice it fits a lot better together it has a sassiness to it it's a nice click so it'll be good

anyway um but today we'll talk about the protests in iran uh the outlook for the market and we'll speak with journalist jessica yellen who i just met recently the founder of independent

company news not noise so this is the same thing neutral neutral news not noise so it's the same thing on what we talked to chris cuomo about jessica and i had a three-hour lunch in colorado she's great literally

we couldn't stop lunching we could not stop lunching okay you have you have a very similar attitude towards her i think i had a nice little coffee with her recently at your apartment actually but first twitter is getting its first chance to hear from elon musk under oath Musk is currently answering questions in private deposition about his attempts to pull out of his $44 billion Twitter purchase.

That should be interesting.

Twitter is also making a rare move of questioning Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro.

Together, both sides have subpoenaed over 100 people, including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who I believe has testified.

This is the discovery period, as they say.

It's a five-day trial in the Delaware Chancery Court kicks off October.

17th.

It's like our Super Bowl.

We are going to have the cinematic universe of Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway to cover it for you with content feeds across Pivot, ProfG, and on with Kara Swisher.

So

we're going to do it up.

So what do you think about

right now where we are?

Just getting ready?

Look, I think what's going on behind the scenes is that his lawyers, who have got to be very bright people, have said,

this is a tough one, boss.

And so I would imagine that he's already made overtures to Twitter saying we should settle this.

And And Twitter's in a weird spot because unless they settle it for the better part of 20 billion,

their best course of action here is to get a decision that says he is

legally obligated to pay $54.20 and then start a negotiation there.

So I don't think they have any motivation.

I think the likelihood, if you game theory it out, I think there's a 90% chance likelihood they're going to get a decision in their favor.

So 90, you know, 0.9 times 54 bucks is what, you know,

$49.

So they're, and then the natural level of the stock is around 20, 20 bucks.

So $29 delta times $750.

So unless he's willing to settle for $22 billion, they're better off in my view going forward with the case.

And I think this, I don't think Elon Musk is going to do well under oath

because I think that individuals of his power with his sort of, that register his sort of idolatry begin to believe that they have their own reality i don't know about that he won that that case with the pedophile thing that pedo thing he did i think he does have discipline when it comes to that remember he didn't go off the rails there he goes off the rails in real life when he does 420 and things like that but when he gets under oath i think he's much more in control of himself yeah but that was he didn't he could say the truth there because the reality was that was in poor taste that showed a lack of character but in a slander case like that unless the individual can show it's caused him economic harm, unless he's not getting cave diving tour expeditions because people think he's a pedophile, he's not going to win.

And so, but in this case,

he's just so wet.

He's so wrong.

And I also think there's so many things that are going to reflect poorly around his true intentions here.

I mean, he kind of shows up having lied.

I want out of this deal because of the bots.

Well, that's not true.

And I think that

they're going to begin to ask him very uncomfortable questions around his financing and who was in the deal and who got out of the deal.

I mean, they're just going to ask, they're going to be so-texts and emails.

Yeah, no, for sure.

I think one of the things, though, is he, if you've noticed, his Twitter has calmed down a great deal, a great deal.

Because the lawyers have said, stop it.

I know, but he's done it.

Like, listen, Trump hasn't.

Trump hasn't shut the fuck up.

You know, he has done it.

He's very responsive.

I've been trying to reach him for a while.

He suddenly responded, very cordial.

I think he knows he has to be cordial and really not, he can't indulge himself.

And he, unlike Trump, who literally is doubling down on idiocy and just convicting himself, I think he has realized what a situation he's in.

So I suspect he'll probably be on his best behavior, and he's capable of it

in these depositions.

So I don't think he's going to play games.

It's way, it's far too much money, and it's significant money for him.

So we'll see.

We'll see what happens in this case.

But I think you're right.

He's going to lose.

I mean, there's so many questions.

You have 90 million followers.

Have you not put out text messages messages estimating that somewhere between a third and two-thirds of your followers are bots?

Yes, I have said that.

Have you not put in place strategies to have these bots weaponized to artificially support your stock price?

Yes.

Doesn't that mean you are benefiting from these bots that you also knew exist?

I mean, this is going to be so much fun for the lawyers at Wachtel,

the Twitter lawyers.

I think they salivate over the opportunity to question this guy under oath.

They want to knock him off.

They want him to say something crazy under oath.

It'll be a big test of his control ability i i the only person that's toned it down more than elon is chamoth who all of a sudden everyone's discovering has made 750 million dollars in what is the largest one of the the largest transfer of wealth from failed enterprises since adam newman and we work

And he's gone very quiet.

Bill Cohen wrote a terrific column in Podcast.

Outstanding.

Outstanding about the SPAC King.

But he's still making excuses for it.

He is still touting his book.

But I would agree with you.

I think he's got to keep quiet for a little bit now.

The thing is with Elon, I'm going to make this, it's not a prediction precisely, but I think if he tones it down and doesn't go overboard again, he can regain this brand.

I think he's done so much damage to his brand in general.

Anyways, remember last year when your iPhone started asking you whether or not you wanted a new app to track your activity?

Two lawsuits alleged that Meta created a workaround allowing it to monitor activity whether or not a user gave permission.

Tracking users is a direct violation of Apple's app tracking transparency policy.

It's also a violation of federal and state laws against unauthorized data gathering.

Meta says both lawsuits are, quote, without merit, is the alleged move by Meta Desperate.

I know they're angry about it because

Nick Clegg said something about it in a recent interview with Ben Smith for Semaphore,

where he talked about

Apple and privacy.

And then I got, I tweeted it, and then

Andy Stone, who I really enjoy because he's really quite pugnacious.

He's a Facebook Meta PR person,

came back at me.

Like, anyway, you know, privacy as a business model.

I'm like, I'm good with that.

I'm good with that.

So anyway, so he said,

by the way, Clegg also said he'll be the one to decide whether or not to allow Donald Trump back on Facebook.

He hasn't said which way he's leaning, but gave a deadline of January 7th, 2023.

So what do you think of these two things?

Same old, same old?

Well,

the thing that has just struck me is Apple's power.

On, when was it Sunday?

So yesterday, I was with my 12-year-old and I'm like, what should we do today?

And I think, let's do something British.

We're here in London.

He's like, we kind of thought about it for a minute.

He's like, I know, let's go to the Apple store.

And I'm like, okay.

So we went to the Apple store.

It was packed.

And in addition to it being chaos, immediately someone found us, helped us.

I got the new iPhone, two screen protectors, one for me, one for my boy, a new case.

The service was flawless.

I didn't have to go to a cash register.

Yeah, that's not the right thing.

The place was on fire.

On fire.

And I thought.

That was very British.

That was a very British thing for me.

Wasn't it?

Well, I like to hang out with

a firm based in Cupertino.

But if you look at what Apple's done here, it's remarkable.

Their ad business has gone from a few hundred million dollars in the late 10s to about $5 billion.

That was the point Andy Stone was making, although it's still small.

It's still like

$30 billion in four years.

It's going to be one of the largest media.

It's still small.

Yeah, still small compared to them.

They're like $160, $180.

Yeah, but that revenue will be like 90 points of margin.

It'll be another revenue stream.

I get it.

Facebook was trying to put out that Apple's their real competitor from an advertising point of view today, and they're not.

I mean, Amazon certainly has made inroads, and I think they definitely are facing competition from Apple.

But nonetheless, what do you think of Facebook doing this if they did this?

Well, I mean, that'll be for a court of law.

But what just striking to me is that an unintended consequence, and I saw this as somebody who has startups and used to acquire customers online, the cost to acquire a customer online or the ROI is down 40%

because we all talk about privacy.

But Meta and Google's inability to track people in the same fashion and target them as well has meant that small, medium, and large-sized businesses, businesses, their costs of customer acquisition have gone up dramatically.

Now, what does that mean?

It means offline advertising is more or is less deficient relative to online advertising.

So you go there.

And it also means that Apple is now in the driver's seat and

has first-party data that they can begin to weaponize

or use for their own assets.

But there's just no doubt about it.

Apple, under the auspices of privacy, and this is one of the great genius brand slash business moves, has transferred tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars from mostly Meta, but some from Google, to Apple under the auspices of privacy.

Yeah.

And speaking of Butthurt,

they can't stop it.

They're very,

they're doing a lot of very like reaching out and slapping of Apple, saying, oh, it's their business plan.

It's this, it's that.

They want to be in the ad business.

They're trying to advantage their ad business by using privacy.

They're doing everything.

It must be going crazy inside of Facebook because one, they fail with their phone.

Two, they have no control over this.

And it's the center of their business, right?

Apple really has a stranglehold on the center of their business.

And the meta thing's not working out as well as they hoped.

But what do you think about letting that Nick Clegg is making this decision and not Mark Zuckerberg?

I don't like that one person makes this decision, but here we are.

January 7th, he couldn't.

My understanding is Nick Clegg is basically like the solid in all cap letters number two now.

Yeah.

But look, this has exposed the vulnerability.

I mean, a few things have happened.

Elon Musk has kind of demonstrated and under bright lights, what a shitty business Twitter is.

I mean, he's really damaged the thing and he's brought, whether he wanted to or not, he's just, he's just highlighted, this is a shitty business that's been poorly run for the better part of a decade.

And Tim Cook basically said to Meta,

you know, we're just so much more powerful than you.

With literally a flip of the switch and a few press releases, we we can take your business down $10 billion in top line revenue.

You know, when a company is doing $150 billion and it's trading, it's trading at like, what, I don't know, three to four times revenues, they took $30 or $40 billion in market cap out of the company.

And not only that, it's even more than that, because instead of growing 5% or 10%, they grow negative 1%, which takes their multiple on EBITDA down.

Tim Cook

single-handedly took a quarter of a trillion dollars out of Face out of Meta.

And so, and their general, I'm not surprised at all they're doing this.

Facebook, all of big tech is pretty much their approach is,

you know, ask for forgiveness, not permission.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, it's interesting because I did ask Tim, I think I've said, I don't want Apple to be the regulator.

It's still, we still should be passing legislation.

Of course, we're not.

You know, Amy Klobuchar is struggling to get those things,

the things she's trying to get through.

And we're not getting it on this one on privacy.

And he said, I don't want to be the regulator either.

You know, I don't think I don't think you know, Facebook is accusing it of being their business.

I think it's a good brand attribute, I don't think it's their business to try to screw Facebook, I think that's just the way they pay for it.

Yeah, I agree, but they've been that way forever.

I, I think, I think they've been that way forever.

We'll see where it goes, but meta, we'll see.

What do you think that they should let Trump back on Facebook?

Do you think it matters?

I, you know,

God, I don't know.

I really, I don't think it matters.

Twitter will be Twitter Twitter is the real one.

Twitter's the big one.

Facebook.

Yeah.

Yeah, who cares?

If Elon buys it, he'll be back on.

If Elon doesn't, there's no way Twitter's letting him back on.

They're just going to be like, why do we, why revisit that?

We've already gotten the slings and arrows for knocking him off.

Yeah, you got a guy who refuses to acknowledge the peaceful transfer of power.

And so you want to spread that?

That's what you just let them stay buried.

That's what I say.

Stand by our decision.

They should get put out.

We'll revisit it on a regular basis.

We'll revisit it.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

Who cares what Facebook does, anyway.

Uh, let's get to our first big story.

Protests continue in Iran following the outcry over the death of a young woman, 22-year-old Masa Amini, in police custody.

She had been arrested for allegedly wearing her headscarf too loosely by the morality police.

Over the weekend, protests spread to at least 80 cities.

In response, authorities have repeatedly shut down mobile internet connections for most of the 80 million people who live there.

The government has also disrupted Instagram and WhatsApp services, which is one of their go-to moves.

Last year alone, 23 countries, including Cuba, Bangladesh, India, and more, shut down the internet a collective 182 times.

Talk about this.

This is a real, this is really something that's growing in power.

These protests, which is critically important, when I interviewed Hillary Clinton, she did talk about the need for this to keep going.

What do you think about this?

What's going on here?

I think it's exciting.

If you take the lens back across the world, democracies are beating autocracies.

And for all the grief we give big tech and social media, the porous nature, I believe that social media and the porous nature of media now is in large part responsible for the protests in Russia.

These autocrats, you know, you weaponize the media, then you weaponize the economy, and that gives you license to take over the military.

But if you have a media where you can no longer control state-run media, or state-run media is no longer what 80% of people see, it's 8% because they get their media from other means.

It's really powerful.

And not only that, there's a striking contrast here between when you look at what's happening in Russia with men fleeing and then in Iran, you have women staying and fighting.

And it's really, I think it's really inspiring.

And what, so I went to UCLA.

LA has the largest concentration of Iranians outside of Tehran.

And I had several close friends who were Iranian.

And I've always thought that the Iranian people are more American than almost any other people, at least the ones I knew.

They were super into capitalism, super into education, super hardworking.

And it's always struck me and the people I know that came over and people who still go home and visit their parents, I've always thought it's such a tragedy that Iran is not an ally.

Because I feel like at least the people I know are,

it seems like they are so, I don't know, I always thought that we would get along other than this extremist group running the country.

And I think the younger population there wants a different life.

I think there's a universal agreement around anyone under the age of 40 that we're not down with the future that looks like this type of oppression.

I mean, some of the shit is just so out of,

it's just beyond the pale, right?

That women can be married off at the age of 10 or 11.

Women aren't allowed to go to sporting events.

And people are pulling off their hijabs and cutting their hair.

They're putting themselves in very danger from these people.

These people are very good at cracking down.

And And what my worry is very similar to Ukraine, although, look,

they keep going as the attention moves elsewhere or the protests can't continue.

These hyper

religious regimes have a tendency to come back again and again and again.

Like even if they've been liberalized, they get unliberalized rather quickly.

I do think it's really interesting that

they do get information without it.

This stuff's getting out.

One interesting wrinkle was, and I talked about it on the podcast, on my new podcast was christiana manipur was supposed to do a um

an interview with their president and uh she refused to wear a hijab and they and they canceled the interview because she was in this country she often wears it in other countries as a sign of respect if that's their laws um but he or she refused to and then they canceled it and a lot of people thought she should do a you know a hard interview on him but I felt like the visual of her wearing it right now with him would have been very damaging to these protests.

And so I'm glad she refused.

Everything's about imagery and everything else and getting that stuff out with these

protests in lots of ways.

Well, so the median age of protesters is 20 years old.

Get this.

70% of the population in Iran is under the age of 25.

You think they're down with this shit?

I mean,

change is coming and it's coming in the right direction.

And it's going to get in.

It's going to get in.

Elon Musk, for example, said he's activating Starlink service in the country, even though some cybersecurity experts say there's still logistical challenges.

He did that in Ukraine, and it's up and running.

And so they're going to get their information no matter what.

And so, no matter what these, these

you can shut down these things, but there's lots of forces in the other direction.

But you're right, the young people are going to get their information one way or the other.

Yeah, and I think it's exciting what's happening.

And Russia is inspiring in its own way.

The unfortunate thing is the people on the front line of that,

whether it's a young woman who is, you know, beaten to death in prison or a lot of these young men who are being kind of sent to their imminent death uh they you know they will be

i don't know i don't call them martyrs but it's just a shame but they will uh there's a spark here and it's catching fire well one would hope within the country i mean leaving the country is one thing but staying and fighting for your rights there would be another thing of course you saw those videos of them getting beaten and thrown into buses essentially like dragooned it's dragooning them um to say or you know it's just that's what they're doing and so um

it's it we'll see what happens we'll see if there is a regime change at any of these places i'm not so sure that will be the end result but it certainly does it must give these um leaders pause especially putin but i think putin's so far gone i doubt he will do anything except what he wants to apparently he's running the war now and ignoring everybody which means it's going to end fast presumably and not in his favor anyway scott let's go on a quick break when we come back we'll talk markets here and abroad and we'll speak with a a friend of Pivot, Jessica Yellen.

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Scott, we're back.

What is up with the markets?

The Dow dropped 100 points on Monday morning after a week where it fell to its lowest close since November 2020.

The NASDAQ is coming off its worst two-week stretch since the start of the pandemic.

The SP is down about 23% for the year, is on pace for its biggest annual drop since 2008.

The VIX hit its highest level since June.

Give us some thoughts.

Give us some thoughts.

Yeah, so I don't have a lot to say here other than I would describe our entire economy as the Elvis economy, and that is, we've decided to bring in outside forces, a doctor, whether it's Chairman Powell or money printing, and wake the economy up with pills, put it to sleep with pills.

And we end up with an economy that's just obese with all this outside intervention.

And you end up with something that has a stroke while going to the bathroom or a heart attack or whatever happened to Elvis.

Our economy, in my opinion, the best thing that can happen to an economy is we go through a recession.

And we've bought into this notion that we need to avoid a recession at all costs.

And you know what a recession does?

A recession in some ways is a transfer of wealth from older people to younger people.

And the reason why I'm economically secure is as I was coming into my prime income earning years in 2008, Apple and Amazon fell to levels where you could buy them for 1 20th what they're going for now.

What about these rates?

The Fed raised rates three quarters of a point last week.

Have an impact of that?

It's exactly what we should be doing because the fastest way to revolution isn't forcing women to wear a hijab

or

even a bad war.

The fastest way to revolution is to universally, severely diminish people's quality of life with Weimar Republic-like inflation.

Inflation, if it gets out of control, is really something you cannot control.

And so

these are, are, Jerome Powell is doing exactly the right thing.

And the only thing you could criticize him for is being late to it.

So to get inflation under control,

you have to dampen demand by making things more expensive by raising interest rates.

And you need to increase supply through structural investments that take longer.

What about the job market?

Well, the job market's a full employment.

Yeah, it is.

And so we can afford, quite frankly, we can afford layoffs.

And under the auspices that it couldn't happen to a nicer group of people, the people who are taking the brunt of the layoffs layoffs are people of these unicorns.

And I don't mean to be cynical about that.

Layoffs anywhere hurt.

But where you're seeing, let me say this: if you're interested in being a waiter, if you're interested in being a driver, construction, you're fine.

There's not layoffs there.

Where there are layoffs is in the Patagonia Vest

economy.

And we're seeing layoffs at these organizations that were overfunded, that businesses make no sense.

But I think a recession,

at at some point, I think we just need one.

We need to get through it.

Here's the terrible thing about recessions.

They always happen.

Here's the wonderful thing about them.

They always end.

And it's a natural part of the economy.

It slows down.

We're out over our skis.

We lose some capital is destroyed.

People reinvent themselves, reinvent their companies, get laid off, go to

a

greater use of their human capital.

Prices come down.

You know what we need?

We need prices to come down for a new generation of young people.

The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said over the weekend he thinks we can get to 2% inflation without severely damaging the economy.

We'd all love them to stick the landing.

That's unlikely.

To thread the needle between slowing the economy just enough such that it tamps inflation, but not enough that

it hurts job growth.

That's almost impossible to do.

And here's the thing.

The disruption that took place in 2000, a lot of companies came through it much stronger.

The disruption that took place in 2008, and then if you were coming into your primary income earning years, you could buy real estate in Brooklyn for $400 instead of $1,400 a square foot.

So

the down cycle or the recession in an economy is a healthy thing.

Now, people don't feel that way when they get laid off, and that's understandable.

But this constant printing of more money, this constant trying to engineer the economy.

Like you said, Elvis, who'd rather have more drugs to sing Unchained Melody once again.

There you go.

Let's just get on a bring the Arlet.

We'll get through it.

We'll be fine.

I I wish the Colonel wasn't around for Elvis.

He would have been singing today.

He would have been singing today.

The Colonel.

The Colonel.

There you go.

Anyway, okay, Scott, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Jessica Yellen is an award-winning journalist who covered the White House for ABC and CNN.

She also is a founder of an independent media company, News Not Noise.

She joins us today to talk about the role of the news media and how she's built a news organization outside the traditional media framework, which is not easy.

Welcome, Jessica.

All right, Scott, I usually, you know, take over because I'm the alpha dog here, but I'm going to let you start this interview because you and Jessica have a bond from your long boozy lunch.

Well, I think the question everyone wants to know is, have you ever had a better lunch than the one we had?

Honestly.

I really, I can't remember one, Scott.

There is truly A, no better company.

And B, it made me such a superstar.

Everyone's like, you had lunch with Scott Galloway.

Oh, I thought.

Go on.

You can see why I love Scott Galloway.

No, don't worry.

Jessica, Jessica.

Okay, so a real question question here.

You've been at kind of the helm of the bobsled.

You cover the White House.

You've been on a major network.

Now you're doing something very cool with new mediums.

Talk about not the message so much or how news has changed, but how have the mediums changed?

What have you noticed about trying to communicate news through a new medium like Instagram versus like traditional broadcast news?

Well, the main difference for me is the conversation you can have with the audience.

You know, I used to be on these big channels and I would have some nights millions of viewers and you just broadcast into this black camera and have no idea how it went over.

Now I put something up and I instantly get feedback.

And it's not just what everybody thinks, which is, I disagree with this point of view or show me your sources, but also a lot of like, I didn't know what that term means.

I hear it used all the time.

Would you explain that?

Or now I'm scared.

What's going to happen next?

And so it becomes more of a conversation and a community.

And that's what becomes, A, rewarding.

B, it gives you real direction on what to report next.

And C, I think it's what builds trust with the audience.

That you have a back and forth, correct?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And you're addressing their needs.

Right.

Interestingly, I had an interview with Chris Cuomo today and he's off with gone to News Nation.

Same thing when they're trying to be neutral.

Talk what news, news, not noise is.

What does that mean?

I mean, it seems obvious, but why don't you explain it?

Well, I started this in 2018 out of the couch in my home.

I was doing work from home before before it was cool.

And I'd been in TV news all these years.

And I'd spent a lot of time talking to voters.

I was a political reporter.

And I was basically, not knowing it, doing market research and discovered in these conversations that there were a lot of people who wanted.

the kind of information TV news could provide, but couldn't stand how we were giving it to them.

They hated the outrage and the negativity and the left-rightism.

People would describe it as like walking into a dinner party 10 minutes after it started.

And you're like, wait, what does that one word mean?

And who's that person?

And sometimes they'd say they feel less informed and more dumb after watching a segment than before because now there's all this stuff they don't, they know they don't know.

And so I decided

or the fear-mongering, the panic.

Yeah, exactly.

I say what we do is facts, not fear, experts, not pundits, community, compassion, conversation.

And it's really about identifying not just the stories that you absolutely should know to be an informed person in this world, be able to execute on big decisions in your life, but also pointing out you're going to hear a lot about this one thing.

It doesn't matter.

You can pay attention to it if you want, but that's kind of like the us magazine of news.

You can ignore it too and be just fine.

What surprised you most in terms of the topics

that have get the most engagement versus the least engagement?

What surprised you?

Well, right now, I'm sorry to report that Ukraine does not get a lot of engagement.

As important as it is,

it's a little like, okay, we did that.

You know, I still keep it up there, but that's not drawing eyeballs.

What is drawing a lot of eyeballs right now is mental health issues, which is, I know, something you talk a lot about.

And people are extremely passionate.

about it.

They have a lot of points of view about what needs to be done, what works, what doesn't.

And those conversations get so much engagement.

I've deliberately worked in sort of wellness and mental health breaks into the news especially on days that I say have a lot of awful

people just need the let up I even do one newsletter I call news that doesn't suck just to give people a break from how much really high stakes negative information there is out there right now Well, in one case, they sort of lean into that idea of fear-mongering.

In the other case, there is some tough stories out there.

And so when you think about large news organizations, the way they attract right now is through fear and anger.

Fox News is like in a constant state of grievance, but MSNPC and CNN tend to do the same things.

And, you know, and then it goes all the way down to local news, which I characterize as the expression, it could happen to you.

And no matter what it is, mold or killer bees or, you know, a rash, it could happen to you.

It could happen to you.

My favorite is your shoelaces could kill you after the break.

Yeah.

Right.

That kind of stuff.

How do you, what do you think the biggest problem facing them in is if this is their formula, this is their business model.

And then I'd love you to come on on your business model because it's hard just on the other side of it.

So I think that they made a decision in TV news.

far predating today, you know, when I was a baby reporter,

that conflict is what draws eyeballs, period.

And that accelerated over time to fast forward to the Trump era when there was a lot of cause to be outraged.

But it then was like outrage on steroids.

And it's left people in this place where showing you care equals outrage.

Like there's not another, you're either at zero or 10, no in between.

And that's just the model.

It's got a lot of fear, like you're saying, also

just a sense of negativity, like a negative valence.

The motto when I launched News Not Noise, my motto was, we give you information, not a panic attack.

And I used to feel when I was, you know, on the White House lawn that some days we were just competing for your anxiety.

I grew up in LA, and this is the home of Hollywood, where they made an entire business of doing content that's largely based on another set of emotions, which are compassion and empathy.

And I thought there's an audience that really wants this, and there's a way to do news.

that has compassion and empathy.

And I'll just say there is neuroscience that shows that some of that screaming shuts down learning in some people, in some brains.

And so it actually turns off the audience.

That's what they are committed to.

I think.

But they can't stop watching, right?

At the same time.

No, I know a lot of people like new, they turn it off.

Or if I do speeches and I'm in audiences of people, it's people under 50 who go, I can't take it.

I just can't.

They do this consistently with their ears.

They put their hands to their ears.

I can't do it.

And it's not that they don't care about the information.

It's not that they don't, that they can't handle how awful the news really is, like the information.

It's the added valence we put on it of just rage and conflict and outrage.

So I worked hard on thinking, how do we do that differently?

How do we unpack that part and bring people into a conversation with a

vibe of caring and curiosity?

How do you make money doing that?

Yeah.

So when I started, I honestly didn't know how I was going to monetize.

I thought you draw an audience with an audience, you can figure out how to monetize.

So the first thing I have three revenue streams.

I take money from partners or sponsors, however you want to call them.

I get money from the audience and I have deals with some of the platforms.

And I think it is wise and really effective to have multiple revenue streams in a content business.

In that space, my biggest regret was not asking the audience to support me sooner.

Once I was so sort of hesitant to do that.

And once I did, the response was like so overwhelming and gratifying.

And it also gives you this deeper connection with your, you know, everyone calls them super users.

It actually helps direct the business.

So whether it's YouTube or Instagram or email newsletter, is there a medium you wish you'd invested less and another medium you wish you'd invested more in?

Oh, that's interesting.

You know, my biggest dilemma is something you talk a lot about, which is TikTok.

And, you know, if you talk to sort of brand experts, they're like, you got to be all over TikTok.

TikTok's the place.

But so much of what I do is also about, is mission driven.

It's about democracy.

People need to be informed to engage.

And I just am a little uncomfortable.

So, and then I always, you know, as why are you a little uncomfortable, Jessica?

China.

I just, I feel like, why am I going to drive more people into deeper engagement in a platform where I believe that the Chinese government can scoop up their data and even drive sentiment here?

And I don't, you know, why do I need to be feeding that?

So let me just press, let me just press pause there because this is an interesting,

and we get a lot of discussion or questions around this.

You are more concerned with the negative externalities of having content on TikTok than having it on meta.

Yes.

Hmm.

Now, maybe you know more than I do, and you can tell me I'm wrong.

I just.

No, I trust me, I don't.

I think we all struggle with this.

It's like, how can you be so critical of TikTok?

I mean, it's just, anyways, I think everybody's trying to figure this out.

Yeah, we had a lot of people at Code talking about this.

Like Axel Springer, CEO, said, we're doing everything to resist it.

And eventually we're not going to be able to because it's the medium of the moment.

I think a lot of people are, you know, struggling.

I think they're all problematic in their own ways.

I'm curious, a lot of what you're talking about is something that Chris Lick at CNN, where he used to work, is pushing.

And again, Chris Cuomo's at this News Nation, which is Project Neutral.

Is that the right direction?

Do you see more of this?

And can they keep audiences?

You know, Fox is only growing with their anger machine, their persistent rage machine.

Well, I think the answer is yes.

I do think it will work and it'll keep audiences.

I think that you have to shift your expectations.

When I was growing up and I watched CNN, you know, in the Tiananmen Square moment, and it was just the centerpiece of the world to me,

CNN drew huge eyeballs at major events.

and accepted that they would get less audience in between.

It also became a place where, you know, you could actually reach independents and swing voters, which is enormously valuable and profitable, right?

You can charge more for that.

So I do think there's a space for that.

I think, listen, when I started on Instagram, I was one of the only people doing what I do, but now there's a bazillion people telling you what matters in the world, all outraged and, you know, dancing and screaming about how awful this party is or that.

So there's plenty of left-right content out there.

And I think there is a white space sort of that attracts the people who feel a little homeless right now.

And I don't know, you know, exactly how CNN is going to execute on that, but I think that Chris Licht in particular has a track record of making very watchable TV and people should just give him a moment to do it.

Yep.

Scott, last question.

What advice would you have?

If you

started this new media company and you've done it yourself,

What advice would you give to somebody who wants to start a media company that's news-centered?

What mediums would you use?

Business model.

It sounds like you've already said go right to, I mean, is it fair to call it tipping?

I don't know what you call it, like the telegraph model or the guardian model.

What advice?

You're starting this with a clean slate.

How would you do it differently?

I guess I would start

with a platform outside of any of the current social media platforms and consistently drive to your own website or your own newsletter or whatever the thing is you're doing outside the algorithms from day one, even if it didn't have super high

numbers.

And just really focus in on what the audience is responding to

and continue to deliver that.

It's this conversation.

I think, you know, everybody poo-poos Web3 or where's it going?

But the thing that I find interesting about Web3 is it's this ongoing circular conversation.

And I do think conceptually, that's where the media needs to go.

And those are the businesses that will really excel because we are sorting into sort of, I call it not like-minded, but like-valued communities.

And so lean into that.

Yeah, that's absolutely.

Just a quick follow-up.

I get the sense you're working all the time.

I mean, I'm a huge

number of news.

She's having three hour lunches with Spike.

That was a vacation.

That was for her mental health, Kara.

So, but I love, I literally love news.

I find it so rational and calm and informative.

And it's like a quick burst of information, get me to what I need to know without the superlatives or the adjectives.

But you are putting out content all day long.

Do you have a team?

So yes, I have a team

and they're amazing.

And also, I am one of those people who I just, I need to sometimes share, right?

So for me, it is somehow therapeutic to be able to comment on these things and respond to people.

Sometimes it's exhausting because people now write me and they'll say things like, do you think I should get the monkeypox vaccine?

I trust you.

So tell me what to do.

And I'm like, I can't be your doctor.

But

it, so that can get, it can wear on me.

But I, I just, I really love it.

And that's why I do it.

And now I got a puppy and that really, he, it's crazy.

He sometimes knows when I'm like in a Twitter rabbit hole and he starts yapping at me.

So he gets me out.

Bruno.

Bruno.

It's angel.

Oh my God.

It's dog talk time.

Anyway, that's okay.

Don't worry about it.

Jessica, this is really exciting.

I'm glad you did it so early.

Just remember, Jessica was doing this in 2018 before it's now sort of the thing to talk about neutral news, but you did it you under you you called it much earlier thank you of people talking about it you can find everything news not noise on the web at news not noise.com and on instagram at jessica yellen because someone else has taken news not noise on the instagram and we're going to get on that soon thank you jessica thank you so much longtime listener so glad to be on favorite lunch date favorite lunch date

Okay, Scott, would you invest, if you invested in that, how would you think of it as an investment opportunity?

I asked Jessica and she said she wasn't ready or she was just kind of figuring it out.

I think news, not noise is, I just,

I think the world of her.

And I think it's so important that talented people find new mediums to communicate kind of just the facts, ma'am, like straight down the middle, tries not to give in to the need to tickle our sensors and get engagement through enragement.

And she,

I would just advocate enormously for, and I did know Jessica before this.

I reached out to her and said, I just want to know you and I want to know how I can be helpful because I think what you're doing is really interesting.

You're a fan.

So you're a fan.

Anyway, that's really interesting.

Okay, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

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

Go for it.

Okay, so my

fail is,

you know, moves to London once.

The new Prime Minister, Prime Minister Truss, has decided her first move was to enact an economic package that essentially the centerpiece was to eliminate the top marginal tax rate.

So it used to be 40%,

then she got rid of that.

And the thinking was, and you'll recognize this, that our quote-unquote most productive citizens, when they have more money, reinvest in the economy and grow the economy.

Now, I think there's an argument for that, but at a minimum, you want to pay for it through other means or other revenue increases, but they've decided to embrace this sort of trickle-down economics where let's cut taxes on the rich and explode our deficit.

And it's as if they have learned nothing.

America has been in a 40-year experiment that that just doesn't work.

It might send stocks up in the short run, but it creates income inequality, divisiveness, polarization.

You know, households or one in five households have kids that are economically insecure.

And what do you know?

They've decided to ignore that, but the markets have decided, no, we've learned from that.

And the pound has crashed.

I mean, literally, you're seeing the pound for a brief time today.

It was at a buck 03.

It's at an all-time low.

Because the market goes, sister, this shit doesn't work.

It doesn't work

when you've decided to give money to the wealth, the wealthy, and pay it with the credit card.

She likes the wealthy.

When pay it with the credit card that our children and our grandchildren are going to have to pay back.

It's like, have you learned nothing?

Anyways.

I like you going into British politics.

There you go.

Ah, this.

I don't like it.

I don't like it.

My win is CNBC journalist or reporter Deirdre Bosa.

She did an interview with Keith Raboy this weekend or on Friday talking about Opendoor.

And Keith kicked off the interview by saying that Opendoor has been profitable for five years straight.

That is not true.

As a matter of fact, I think they lost two-thirds of a billion dollars last year.

And when she politely stopped him and said, that is not true, he said that it was insane and stupid and started walking it back and saying on a contribution basis, on a gross margin basis.

He then went on to say that stock-based compensation was fake.

No, it's not fake.

It's a real thing, Keith.

And he then went on to say that he would love to buy shares in this, but he's prohibited from doing so, which is an outright lie.

And this is continuing a pattern of SPACs being the ultimate vehicle for transfer of wealth from retail investors to their promoters.

And this stock, you know, this algorithmically driven real estate buying industry is unproven.

The one company that should have owned this, Zillow, got out.

It was losing so much money.

And we gave Opendoor the benefit of the doubt and said it's a pure play.

It's now off 84%

over the last 12 months.

And his, in my opinion, inaccuracies and mistruths were so brazen.

I mean, I got to give the guy credit for being so confident when he lies like this.

And Deirdre was just, she defined forceful yet dignified.

And there's a lot about CNBC I've been critical of.

They consistently attract journalists who are able to bring that sort of composure.

I wouldn't have been able to control that.

You know, he's probably on Twitter now insulting her.

That's his other go-to.

Oh,

he called her comments insane and stupid.

It was a mix between cringe, SEC violations, and mansplaining wrapped up in a CNBC.

Yeah, he is.

He's aggressive.

Literally, first ballot hall of fame for worst spokesperson for a company ever.

But she did not take the bait.

She was cool as a fucking cucumber and just stopped him and said, no, that's not right.

You are not profitable.

According to Gap Accounting, you are hemorrhaging money.

Anyways, my win is CNBC and Deirdre Bosa, who like was, was really, I thought, showed tremendous discipline and grace and just politely pointed out that this guy was enormously full of shit and wasn't going to let her viewers get co-opted by this constant stream of, trust me, I'm a billionaire.

I know better than you.

Buy my stock.

I'm selling, but you should buy.

Yeah, there's a whole strain of that among those types, his types.

There's a whole gang of them that do that.

They try to bully people into thinking you're stupid and you're not.

Dear to well done.

Anyway, my

yes, I do.

It's interesting.

The New York Times has published a story that said TikTok seemed to be moving toward U.S.

security deal, but hurdles remain.

It would keep the Chinese-owned video app on Operating the United States under review.

It could mean ByteDance still owns it.

I don't know how they're going to thread this needle of it being a Chinese internet.

I don't get it either.

Do you have any details on that?

Do you know what that means?

No, this says the two sides have hammering out the foundations of a deal in which TikTok would make changes to its data security and governance without requiring its owner, the Chinese internet ByteDance, to sell it.

I just don't understand.

It's being run by Lisa Monaco, who's very intelligent about this stuff.

And obviously those people there are quite sharp.

I don't quite know how they can protect the, I don't know.

I think it will be politically very difficult to complete an agreement that doesn't have a spin-off at this point.

And the Biden administration doesn't want to be seen as soft on China, I think.

So Senator Marco Rubio, who's such a dumbass, but this is what he said.

Anything short of a complete separation of TikTok from Byte Dance will likely leave national security issues regarding operation state and algorithms unresolved.

I think they're not going to let go of this bone.

Even if it was the safest place in the world,

I think they wouldn't.

They're just not letting go.

of it.

So we'll see where it goes.

But I think, I don't know if it's a winner or a fail.

I'll be interviewing the CEO, the U.S.

CEO soon.

So I don't know.

I think it's so sucked up into a political thing now.

And it's also a good

cudgel by media companies who aren't as competitive creatively to them.

And then a win is, I love that Olivia Wild's movie, Don't Worry, Darling, did incredibly well at the box office, along with Woman Warrior, by the way.

Even despite all the noise about her fights with the, the, with the, which is so ridiculous.

It's always the woman fighting with having a cat fight.

There's all kinds of problems on most sets of Hollywood movies.

This is a good movie.

Have you seen it?

No, but apparently it's about the metaverse.

It's about the metaverse.

So we'll see.

We'll see.

So, no, I haven't.

And I want to.

I want to see Woman Warrior first, but

I have not a lot of free time.

I am right now watching, as I said, The Dropout.

So good.

Amanda Seafried.

I hadn't seen it.

It's mind-blowingly good.

I'm on the last episode and Amanda fell asleep last night, but we're going to watch it tonight, I think.

But it's really good.

I'm I'm really so I'm excited to see both those movies,

both by women directors and doing really well at the box office.

So I'd say that's a that's a plus as far as I can tell.

Anyway, that's it for our show.

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 855-51-PIVOT.

Scott, as I said, that's the show.

It's great being with you.

I love our show.

You know, I love our show, my new show, but I love

our show too.

uh pivot is still remains um a joy to do every day we do it um and uh and i will be in london in like a day or two to stay with you for a month we could go to the apple store in london that would be a real british highlight that's where i take all the tourists we'll be back on friday for more scott read us out today's show was produced by larin aim and evan angle and taylor griffin ernie andrtott engineered this episode thanks also to drew burrows and meal silverio make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts thanks for listening to pivot from new york Magazine and Box Media.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business, England versus Germany tonight in a friendly at Wembley Stadium as we begin our march towards Doha.

Go, England.

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