Facebook’s Crypto Dreams Bite the Dust, Robinhood M&A Rumors, and Guest W. Kamau Bell

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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 you doing today how was your big dinner that you like went all sex in the city on the line about with your men um yeah it was good it was um i was with rax chapman the former nba

uh all-star and a very soulful gentleman and george hahn g-hahn g-man g-money right yeah um it was very nice.

Yeah.

Anderson Cooper canceled.

Ghost did you.

He's the hot girl.

He gets to cancel.

What was his excuse?

Some baby excuse?

You know, we're so close.

I don't like to share those types of things.

It would be inappropriate for me to talk about this game.

Did you feel bad?

Did you all feel bad that the hot girl didn't show up for dinner?

You know,

Kara, my life is a never-ending stream of people canceling on me.

So I've developed a decent amount of callous

tissue around people canceling plans with me.

Yeah, really?

Do they?

Yeah.

I never have to.

I take it in stride.

I take it in stride.

People don't dare skip a dinner with me.

I'll tell you that.

That does not happen.

I can just tell you, my text is full of responses of me that are very simple.

NP.

Scott, I'm sorry, I can't make it this weekend.

NP.

No problem.

Scott, we've decided we'd rather not work with you.

NP.

I'm not upset.

Yeah.

You know what?

When people write that, like, you know, you write no problem, when people do that, I'm like, that's a problem.

And I tell them, right, I don't let them get off with the no problem thing.

I don't like it.

And I declare if I'm unhappy.

You should try it sometime.

Well, I've kind of moved to that hurts my feelings.

Oh, no.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Hostility works really well.

And they do not skip again.

Let me just tell you.

Oh, there's hostility.

I just mask it.

Okay.

You should see how many people.

Don't ghost my friend Scott.

And if you tried it with me, I would, there would be problems between us.

There would be a gay problem between us if you did that to me.

Kara, my closet is full of Barbie dolls that don't have their legs on them.

I twist off the legs.

It's scary in there.

All right.

Well, I'm glad Jihan was there because he's probably like such a, he makes up Andrews.

He's the best.

Yeah.

He's a really wonderful guy.

Anyway, we've got a couple of Pivot MIA announcements.

It's going well with the with the bookings.

John Oringer from Shutterstock, who's one of the early investors down in Miami.

This is our Miami-focused announcements.

John Oranger, I have known him for a long time from Shutterstock.

And he's been doing a lot of really interesting investing and promoting of the area.

I like John.

It'll be interesting to hear his thoughts about what's happening there and what's going on.

We also have the mayor of Miami-Dade, Daniela Levine-Cava, who's very interesting, doing all kinds of stuff around climate change.

There's, you know, Miami has some issues that they're going to have to deal with.

She's the one with the power in Miami and runs that whole huge area.

So that'll be interesting, talk about climate climate change, running city.

There's all sorts of different political tides going on there with her and others in that state.

It's quite an interesting state from a political point of view.

So it's going to be great.

It's going to be fantastic.

Yeah, I'm excited.

And it's February in Miami, so it's going to be.

Yeah, I'm that.

It's what I'm so freezing here today.

I literally

had in Florida.

Oh, you're in New York?

I'm in.

Oh, yeah, it's cold.

I don't like it.

I don't like it.

I'm excited to go to Miami and put on my flip-flops.

I'm very excited.

I'm going to wear flip-flops the whole time, just so you know, on stage, including.

I have very nice feet, so that'll work fine.

But in any case, yeah, I have nice feet.

I have shockingly nice feet.

I will show them to you, but in a public setting.

So

you mean after you touch my phone?

Oh, my God.

I am going to ghost you at dinner.

I'm going to invite you to dinner and then not show up.

And I'll be out with Anderson and I will sell it.

I'm used to it.

Selfie's.

I'm totally used to it.

Selfies from

the gay bar together.

I'm okay.

Anyway, we'll be dancing

at night away.

So

one thing, shout out to Stephanie Ruhl, our friend of Pivot.

She's apparently taking over for Brian Williams.

I love Brian Williams.

He's

my friendly uncle, who I've been watching for years on the 11th hour on MSNBC.

Stephanie's moving to nighttime, so she can be a lot naughtier.

That's my feeling.

What do you think?

You're exactly right.

It's perfect.

Stephanie, and I can say this now, this like bullshit morning cheery stuff, like how to best use coupons at the Kroger's.

I hate that stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's not bad.

She should be.

She should be a night.

Yeah.

Stephanie is all about that.

She's a night animal.

She is.

She's a knight.

Yeah.

Though some people were like online, which I was sort of pushed back against.

They're like, oh, Brian was like a cup of cocoa that you needed after a tough day.

Like, you know, he had all those little aphorisms, you know, just like a whatever, a cow.

And he had all kinds of Western references and stuff like that with little metaphors.

But I don't think so.

I think Stephanie's, you know, you don't need to calm down.

You need to calm up is what you need to do.

And I think Stephanie will be excellent.

She's very funny.

I think Brian did a great job.

I think Stephanie's the right host.

Brian, I think, wants to be kind of the next Jon Stewart.

Yeah.

I just, every, I've been on with Brian just a couple of times.

He's always like kind of folksy and home.

He's like, he's like, Professor, you're like the moose that wouldn't be tamed.

And you're like, oh, I don't know what that means, but it's funny.

I don't know what that means, Brian.

Yeah, he has all those weird animal references.

In any case, Stephanie's very, very funny.

I'm hoping her funny side really shows and her

very naughty and not naughty.

I guess it's naughty.

What is it?

Oh, she's salty.

Salty.

Salty.

Saucy and salty.

You should see some of the texts I get from her.

Usually like she puts them on Twitter.

Yes, we've seen them.

Oh, my God.

You're such a fucking idiot.

And why wouldn't you send them like, Jesus Christ, really?

That hurts you.

I bet that hurts you quietly.

It does.

Anyway.

So today, let's get to today.

Congratulations, Stephanie.

Today we'll talk about Facebook's failed cryptocurrency efforts, Tom Brady's NFT platform.

And W.

Kamal Bell joins us for a conversation about his new documentary series, We Need to Talk About Cosby.

First, just very quickly, Stephen Breyer is leaving the Supreme Court.

That sort of sucked up Stephanie's news yesterday.

He's the antitrust wonk who authored the court's decision in Google versus Oracle.

We don't know who his successor is yet, but names are being thrown around.

None have the heavy antitrust backgrounds, but one candidate, U.S.

District Judge, Jay Michelle Childs, ruled last year that a California privacy law should apply to a cloud software company that suffered a data breach.

I think it's very clear it's going to be a woman, a woman of color,

which is what Joe Biden promised during the campaign.

There's several incredible candidates.

I was reading all the profiles of each of them, and it seems strong.

But a lot of tech stuff is going to get up to this Supreme Court.

This is going to be a very young Supreme Court.

So, for years to come, they are going to be ruling.

Well, a lot of the focus, obviously, is on Roe and voting rights and things like that.

There are some really significant privacy and other issues that are going to move up to the supreme court and platforms um antitrust all kinds of stuff and so it's going to be very important um

uh who they put on there and and there's several several of these judges are complete will will be able to understand what's happening uh any thoughts

well i i think every country every society needs a ballast and the and the ballast of the united states has primarily been the middle class and our focus on this this incredible accident called the middle class.

But also a tremendous ballast, I would argue, until recently has been the Supreme Court.

They seem to get along.

They were thoughtful.

You got the sense that their lifetime appointments gave them the courage to kind of like adjust the facts and really be thoughtful and that they respected each other.

And they were, you got the sense that all of them were willing to cross the line for the law and the Constitution.

And I think they've lost some of that.

Yeah.

It's a lot of bipartisanship.

It's reaching everywhere, right?

Yeah, it feels as if now they've been infected.

And

Stephen Breyer is sort of kind of reeks of that age of

kind of unafraid but pragmatic.

I thought some of his responses to the challenge around the vaccine mandate were just like, I mean, he just asked simple questions of the lawyer presenting the challenge to the constitutionality of the vaccine mandate.

He just struck me as someone who was not only a scholar, but a gentleman.

The word is he's being forced to step down maybe a little bit early because they're just so shit scared that another Ruth Bader Ginsburg situation happens.

Yes.

Yep.

Yep.

He's 83 years old.

Yeah.

But look, a distinguished career.

Well, look, these things are political.

They pretend the Supreme Court's not political.

It's always been political.

I know we try to pretend with the robes and the fancy bleached

building they're in, but it's always been political.

And this is just,

in this case, given how the Republicans have behaved, you know, around Merrick Garland, who's now the Attorney General, You know, you got to play tough and you got to move this thing through, just like they did Amy

Coney Barrett.

They moved that through in, I think, 36 days or something.

So they've got to, you know, again, we've got Kristen Sinem and Joe Manchin, although I would be shocked if they try to impose their will here.

The president should be able to pick who he wants of a qualified candidate.

And if they do that,

that's really enough with them.

I think it's a really difficult situation for them to really impose themselves.

Of course, one thing that I noticed in one of the stories is if one of the senators dies, this Democratic senator, in this period, it's all screwed.

Whoa, come on.

A couple of Democratic senators have died and come back as Republicans.

Yes, that's true.

That's true.

Anyway, Donald Trump's social networker is trying to recruit influencers without mentioning its founder's name.

Probably a good idea.

True Social admits any references to Trump and emails to social media stars inviting him to join the network.

I think they know who it is in that case, though.

Meanwhile, pro-Trump influencers on Gab and Getter are having a hard time growing their audience, according to the Washington Post.

Of course,

as I said, it's very difficult to do this.

Joe Rogan complained that Getter was Fagazi, and he also said fuckery, this month, just 10 days after joining the network, too much fanfare.

It's funny.

I mean, you know, these are small things.

That's the problem.

They're small sites, and it's very hard to create and make fetch happen.

Did you get an invite to Truth Social?

I don't.

I'm a political enigma.

People don't know how to bucket me.

And so I get invites from no one and piss everybody off.

Yeah.

There's just no room in the middle for anyone in the middle.

But you said this.

Yeah.

I don't know how much of it is.

We like to immediately, on the left, extract that, oh, this is somehow an indication of the changing temperature of people's view of the right.

I think it's just very difficult to start these networks.

And if there were a bunch of networks, social networks trying to start on the left,

they would struggle as well.

Of course, I think.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And I think everyone's taking a well-deserved breather from politics.

It feels like

a lot of the media companies that were focused or kind of not gaslighting, but had really great clickbait every day with Donald Trump.

I've seen their ratings and their viewership.

It's hard to say.

CNN is down, what, 80-some percent or 77%?

MSNBC, some.

Fox is less so, but still down.

All of them are.

And I think it's interesting.

We're going to have some of the social media leaders from these sites at Pivot MIA.

But it's hard.

I want to talk about how, how,

I of course want to discuss the politics, but I think that

how to build a social network, how to create these platforms is a very interesting

problem if you don't control various parts of it.

This is some, Dan Bungina was just kicked off of YouTube for breaking the rules again.

But and he's he's moving to Rumble where he's an investor.

Creating your own

is the only way.

Making your own platform, whatever is going to be.

Anyway, it's interesting.

It's an interesting business problem away from all the politics of it.

But I don't really think True Social needs to use Trump emails.

And we have the CO Parlor coming to Pittsburgh, Miami right now.

And Getter.

Yep.

And we're trying to get Rumble.

Trying to get Rumble, too.

Do you know anything about how they're?

I have no idea.

I've never been on them.

Don't know anything about them.

Don't know who backs.

They're not bad.

I don't think they're forgesy.

I mean,

if you're used to something and then it's something else, it's some of the problems.

They've had the same hacking problems.

They've got issues around,

you know, lots of things.

We'll talk about all that and more there.

I mean, it's interesting.

We're going to have a lot of people critical of us for having there, but

they're building these businesses and we'll talk to them about it.

We will also be tough on them on lots of things.

Founder, Pollard, is very handsome.

I'm looking forward to meeting him.

Okay, good.

Okay, great.

Anyway, Pinterest executives are heading toward the exits.

At least seven senior executives left the company recently, including the head of core product and the global head of content and creators.

What is happening here?

Pinterest CEO, Ben Silverman,'s dual-class shares are powerful.

They don't have to sell.

Nobody has to do anything.

Yeah, I just hate dual-class shareholder companies because the bottom line is Ben Silverman is a billionaire.

So whether he's worth $2 billion one day or seven the other, he doesn't care.

This is his thing.

I've always thought Pinterest is a lovely little company that should not be an independent company.

I always thought it should be the visual search engine.

for Google or something.

And again,

there's antitrust concerns, but I've never thought this was ⁇ like Pinterest and Twitter have been ten-year exercises in how you cannot compete with Facebook and Google.

Yep.

And they both screwed up and said, okay, let's go after an ad-supported model.

And if you're on Pinterest, it's lovely.

And then you get all these shitty ads for flooring.

And it's just weird.

And Twitter, I'm still not entirely sure how they make money.

I don't think I've ever seen an ad on Twitter.

Twitter,

ads on Twitter for me are like hookers.

I'm hooker blind.

Whenever we go to a bar in Midtown with my friends, like, oh my God, did you see all the hookers?

I'm like, I didn't see the hookers.

I am literally blind to hookers.

I mean, like that nice, attractive young lady who took an interest in me, that was a hooker.

I never know how to recognize them.

And then my friend goes, if you ever look at a woman and she returns your eye contact, she's a hooker.

And I'm like, okay, that's a little rough.

Anyways, I would agree with that.

I'm blind to ads on Twitter.

I still don't

know.

Do you watch ads on Twitter?

No, I don't know.

I've never seen them.

I'm hoping.

How do they make money?

What the fuck do they make money?

I don't know what they do.

I don't know.

Anyways, Pinterest, it's a cute thing.

I only use it when we do boards, when we're thinking about we're super into

furniture and

interior design.

I use halfway.

I think it's wonderful for that

and inspiring, but it's not, it doesn't have the addictive elements.

You know, I haven't gone there in a long time.

I have not gone there in a long time.

If you're planning a wedding

company

or thinking about buying soapstone for your kitchen counter,

I just, I think this thing is, I don't think it's a standalone company.

Yeah, it's kind of, its energy has been very unusual over the many years.

I remember when they had some, you know, press events.

Weird energy.

They had like, they had a thing where you went to a press event and they wanted you to make a terrarium while you were there.

They had terrarium elements and you met them.

I wanted you to make a terrarium.

I know.

Have I not made a terrarium since I was fourth grade, essentially?

I literally was like.

I was like the worst private private school in San Francisco.

I was like, I am not making a terrarium.

They're a lot of crafty.

They were crafty for a while.

You know, I think

the energy, I once had dinner with Ben and he.

He was like, what else should I do with my life?

I'm like, aren't you running Pinterest?

What should I do with my life?

Yeah, you know, I think it's,

it probably should sell.

It probably should sell and get some energy too because there is a great idea within it and it's been successful in many ways.

But the energy level, and of course they had those issues around race issues and gender issues.

They lost a lot of money to a very high-ranking executive in a case around sort of freezing her out.

And even though it doesn't seem dude-like, it's got a lot of dude energy.

It's a different dude, but it's still the same problem.

So, anyway, we'll see.

Nothing has to happen, but it seems like a right-handed.

I have some stories there.

I know someone there.

I served on a board with Todd Morgenthal, the CFO and COO, who just reeks of integrity.

And I just dink the world of him.

He was a tank commander,

You know, served his country.

Just, I don't know, just a very impressive man.

And also, and I'm still not over this.

I'm still not over this.

Did he ghost you two for lunch?

Guy.

No, he shows up.

Okay.

He shows up.

He shows up.

Okay, shows up.

Unlike pretty boy anchors.

I bet Stephanie's not going to show up for us anymore.

Oh, no.

Stephanie loves us.

Stephanie loves us.

Plus, she's strategic.

We're her insurance in case one of us, IEU, gets really big.

But I was, this is true story.

In 2011, right as I was starting L2,

I did an event at the Morgan Library and I invited a bunch of new companies to present.

I had this kind of like, you know, stage the pitch.

And this kid showed up named Ben Silberman.

And they said, Scott, would you ever consider being an angel investor?

You know, the valuation is like.

like $12 million.

And I'm like, $12 million?

That's ridiculous.

Da-da-da.

And I'm like, and I didn't do it.

And if I'd fucking done that, my terrarium right now would be a Gulfstream.

I'd be making terrariums on my G650 as I flew to.

But let me just say, I think some of the reasons people leaving the stock is really down.

And at some point, you're like, I don't like it here, and I'm not making money.

And goodbye.

That's what happens in Silicon Valley all the time.

In any case, we'll see.

We'll see what happens.

We will see what happens.

Okay, let's get to our big story.

Our first big story.

Facebook's cryptocurrency efforts may be over before they begin.

Speaking of leaving, the group behind Diem, Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency is exploring a sale of its assets.

Diem was previously known as Libra.

The U.S.

Federal Reserve allegedly sank the project by denying its approval.

Diem's chances looked slim late last year when the project lead David Marcus left Facebook to do his own coin stuff.

You know, this has been Faghazied

for a long time, I think, in a lot of ways.

It was one of these things where Facebook said, we got to be here, just like they've done with newsletters or whatever, you know, trying to compete with Substeck, whatever they do.

Sometimes it sticks, but most times it doesn't.

So what thinks you?

It is also also important for Facebook to have a currency.

Well, let's take a victory lab here.

Who two years ago, when this thing was announced, said that it

gave him just incredible joy knowing all these people heading down the 280 to work on Diem were wasting their lives.

You do.

We said very early this wasn't going to work.

And also, this is a victory.

This is a victory for humanity because if you go to, and I'm going to get very serious very fast, if you go to any museum that talks about real dark moments in our history, it's always kind of a three-step process.

Somebody weaponizes the media, then they can get control of the economy, which leads to control of the military.

And okay, so how's Facebook done with their control of the media?

So the idea that they were going to start to have influence over the economy, I saw as a tremendous threat.

The great news is,

and this is extending to what I think is the most will absolutely be probably one of the biggest product failures in history, Oculus, is that this company isn't very good at homegrown product innovation.

It's fantastic at copying other people's shit.

I mean,

thank God

the people who've been charged with copying every attribute of Snap haven't been trying to copy every attribute of AirPods.

I would just have the Snap plagiarists.

I would set them free on the AirPods and say Facebook needs

hardware devices.

They can't.

It's like Microsoft making things.

They can't.

They just can't.

They can't do it.

We're all blessed with that.

We're all blessed with their inability.

You know, this crypto thing is interesting.

Of course, they they were smart to beat it.

In this case, I would think this would be an important thing for them in terms of commerce on the site, et cetera.

But it's interesting that Amazon has not done, has not moved into this in a significant way.

Probably, or it has Stone Gorks on it, this and that.

But still, you know, I think they had a lot of headwinds from like Democrats asked them to shut down its NOVI digital wallet.

Even though all this money is going into it, including from VCs, 30 billion into crypto and blockchain startups since 2021,

That's a lot.

But it just seems like this was not something people were pulling for, and then they had to get cooperation.

They were trying to do it in a way that got cooperation from around the globe.

And it just was a critical point.

Yeah, stablecoin.

It was the right strategy.

But just to

go back for a second to Pinterest, the stock's off from $90.

It's a 28%.

And here's the year-on-year

growth by quarter, the last four quarters.

They were up 59% in the December 20th quarter of, I think, 2020.

Then the March quarter of 2021, down 31%.

June 20,

up 26%.

And the latest quarter they reported, September, up 3%.

And it's interesting.

The market is

like a relationship, and that is it wants consistency.

And it would much rather you be growing at 8% or 12% a year or a quarter, but consistently.

When you start going kind of up 59, down 31, up 26, then three flat, the market goes, we don't know what to make of you.

We don't know who we're waking up with in the morning.

All right, we're going to do it.

And it hates me.

We went back down Pinterest Alley, but we're in the Facebook

area.

Let me just say, Jack Dorsey gloated on Twitter, posting an article about DM's failure with Carpe DM.

Don't you love the news?

I love the new Jack Dorsey.

The Jack of Fewer Trades.

I love Jack now.

Jack is so nice.

He's so

naughty.

He's good.

Who would have thought that the founder of Twitter would be so good at Twitter?

He's really good.

He's really good.

Anyway, in any case,

this is an area that,

you know, they're trying to sell NFTs, buy, create, and sell NFTs.

They're moving into that area.

Of course, they had moved into dating, and that didn't really work.

Are we talking about Twitter or Facebook?

Facebook.

I'm just saying

this is an important area for them to move into, I think.

And I think

they bid off more than they could chew, and they entered it in a way that is like they're entering the metaverse thing.

Like, we're the metaverse instead of moving slowly.

I think that was one of the issues.

Speaking of fintech acquisitions, this is an interesting one.

I doubt Facebook could buy it.

Robinhood and other fintech startups could be up for sale.

The tech stock slump continues.

Robinhood stock is down nearly 80% from its peak.

It still has 22 million users.

Could be attractive.

Any deal has to get past the founders who control about 65% of the companies.

Interesting.

This fintech area, which was sort of hot, hot, hot, has a lot of little growing pains all over the place.

Yeah, it's and this is another one, you know, couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

The average revenue per user has gone from $137 to $65.

Aren't it?

It's kind of, it feels like it, like, you know, the faster, whatever, the faster the ride up, the faster the ride down.

The average account, I mean, we said 32, there's 32 million accounts at Schwab, and Robinhood has 22 million, but there's there's a big difference.

Yeah.

Are they stickers?

Do people at Schwab just stay there?

I think I've had my fidelity.

Not only Chern, but account side.

The average account balance at Charles Schwab is $240,000.

Do you know what the average account balance is at Robinhood?

$2,400.

$3,500.

That was a great guess.

Thank you.

And so, but at the same time, they're younger and represent the future and a lot of money will come to them.

So

it probably is a pretty decent acquisition candidate because it does bring 22 million users.

It's a nice brand.

And its market cap is down from 60 billion to 13 billion.

Who, who, who?

Amazon?

No.

No, they don't want to get into that.

I think it would be one of the bigger guys.

I mean, for example, I think Goldman should be in the business of.

I think Goldman should have a global.

If a 27-year-old.

I'm going to ask the CEO of Goldman at Pivot MIA this question.

There you go.

There's an idea.

Yeah.

But if there was something called GS Plus, I think a 27-year-old in Hong Kong or Delhi or Cape Town would like to trade on it or like to invest in it.

I can still call it Robinhood.

Why not?

I think

Robin Hood needs.

Well, I'm biased because I think.

Yeah, we agree.

We've been through this with them.

But nonetheless, you know, look at what's happening.

You can clean things up, you know, even slightly tainted.

Well, it's again, it's that cold, comfortable, heavy blanket of boredom for companies that are controversial.

The problem here is their business model is order flow.

And I don't know how.

Yeah.

I mean, other, Charles Schwab, for example, they also, to be fair, sell their order flow.

The company I'm invested in, public, carved out a niche because they don't sell order flow.

Right.

How are they doing?

Are they probably on the market?

They're on fire.

They launched crypto a couple months ago, and their ascent has been as vicious as Robin Hood's decline over the last six months.

But Bitcoin's way down.

I think people will still be in it.

Bitcoin's way down by half since November.

Yeah.

Which is interesting.

All those people took their salary in Bitcoin.

Way to go, Eric Adams.

But let's let's just walk through the math.

They took, they said, I want my $750,000 signing bonus.

I think there was maybe no wide receiver or cornerback.

It was Odell Williams.

It took $750,000 signing bonus in Bitcoin, which triggers a taxable event of around 40%.

And then it got cut in half.

So congratulations, you got about 75 grand.

I know, I know, I know.

Anyway, and all these mayors who are saying they wanted their payments.

We can ask if we, if Suarez comes down, we'll ask him.

So you're a true public servant now.

Yeah.

You're working for free.

Oops.

Anyway, all right, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about Tom Brady's NFT trading cards, and then we'll speak to friend of Pivot, W.

Kamau Bell, about his new documentary, We Need to Talk About Cosby.

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Scott, we're back with something different.

This is Elevator Pitch.

Today, as promised, we're going to talk about Autograph, the NFT platform where Tom Brady is the co-founder.

You can cue you to say he's handsome, but in just a second.

Autograph raised $170 million in Series B funding, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins.

Nicole Quinn of Lightspeed Ventures is also an investor.

On Autograph, users can buy and sell NFTs from athletes and entertainers, including Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Tony Hawk, The Weekend, Simone Biles.

The weekend's an investor, apparently.

So, this is an interesting, you know, this is sort of the celebrity-ness of NFTs, which celebrities probably all looked up one morning and were like, well, I got to do something here.

I know Rhys Withers been tweeted about it, for example, and different, not this particular thing.

They're competing with OpenSea, which is valued at more than $13 billion.

So, talk about celebrity and crypto in this area.

Well, first off, let's acknowledge just how,

just what an incredible athlete Tom Brady is.

You know, do you know why both he and Robert Kraft go to Florida?

No, don't start.

What?

For a happy ending for both of them.

Oh, my God.

Six Super Bowl rings.

All right.

That was bad.

Even I liked it.

I was joke on Robert Kraft.

Speaking of he was not prostitute blind, I guess.

Anyways, look, this totally, do you remember MVP?

Oh, yeah.

It was, yes.

When they have,

these pop up and I ignore them, all of them, unilaterally.

Well, there are some amazing athletes who go on to do amazing businesses, Roger Staubick.

There are some incredibly talented athletes who go on to be great business people.

Agreed.

But for the most part, they want to leverage their awareness.

And it doesn't translate into necessarily into business document.

But do you remember MVP?

It was Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and John Elway.

Yeah.

And I was like, how could that thing fail?

And it's like, well, because it wasn't a great business idea and just having these.

But what did they do?

Don't you remember they were going to sell merchandise online?

Yeah, I think.

I kind of remember.

I don't even remember.

That's the thing.

I mean, I thought.

They were going to sell sports memorabilia online.

And it got some crazy valuation.

Yep.

So what think you of this?

This has Katie Hahn in it, who has a new fund.

She was at Andreessen Horowitz.

She's also in OpenSea, I think.

So what do we think about this?

This is a huge board.

Apple's Eddie Q's on the board.

FTX's Sam Bankman-Freed, artist

The Weekend, is on it.

I will absolutely take the over-under on this.

I think these companies, these VCs who decide they're going to try and pretend that there's some sort of economics in their star fucking,

let's like, oh, let's get this famous person.

Let's get this famous person.

I don't think that

when you're licensing, when you're creating an apparel license and you can get one of the Kardashians, that makes sense.

But just rounding a group of like very famous people up, it doesn't have a good track record.

There's been a bunch of companies like this that just get a bunch of famous people in a room together.

And I don't see what these people have to do with NFTs, really.

Well, it's interesting.

Let me read this from TechCrunch.

Crypto has generally been a tough place for discerning celebrities to make a dent or earn a buck without losing some of their cultural capital.

Matt Damon received a fair share of ridicule this month for appearing in a corny crypto ad campaign.

Earlier this week, Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather were named in a lawsuit brought by disgruntled investors who backed a token that the two had endorsed.

And then Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton promoted their

Board Ape NFTs on Fallon's show.

The moment was called Tacky Sad possibly a conflict of interest by the press.

So there is a place.

You know, this should be done by the agency.

This is an agency.

And

it is linking with a very important company, Dapper Labs,

who has signed a bunch of sports deals and things like that.

So there has to be a place where they can try this out without starting their own company, without doing it on their own, without not understanding what to trust.

So I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

They're creating creating it.

My understanding is they're creating a competitor to Open Seas.

And they're trying to go vertical with the artists or the creators themselves, with famous people who you would think would be fonts for NFTs.

But I would think at the end of the day, these individuals, if they have NFTs worth anything, are going to just want to go to the

it's like it reminds me a little bit of when uh artists started their own labels or started their own streaming services

and they didn't have the business document or the capital to carve out i i'm quite frankly i just think open is going to eat their lunch.

Open C.

Open C.

Open C.

Yeah, it's OpenC.

Open C.

Well, it's open.

Maybe there's more than one.

Stop mocking me.

Well, in any case, it's an interesting, I think they're, I think the agencies should be doing this.

I keep thinking, why isn't like, shouldn't be Ari Emmanuel be sort of skulking around.

Just it seems like another

thing they should help with.

Like, I think I would like my agents to do that.

I think WME should focus on finally getting a movie deal for that underrated yet highly interesting professor they took on several years ago.

That's right.

You're an agent.

But, all right, UTA, which is a lot of people.

I have made them no money, Kara.

I do rather well for my agents, I have to say.

They like.

Well, of course you do.

What a shocker.

What a shocker.

I literally go to L.A.

and I go to my agent.

He's like this wonderful man, David Worshafter, and I apologize.

I'm like, I'm sorry I haven't made you any money.

It's like, it's okay, Scott.

It's okay.

Don't worry.

It'll happen, little guy.

Yeah, they'll never know.

That's why they don't know with you.

You're one of these people.

They're like, something could happen with this guy.

We never know.

Who knows?

It's only just out of reach.

Down the, I just sang from West Side Story.

I keep my enemies closer.

Yes.

Celebrities are going to be in this area.

The question is: do celebrities need to run it?

You know, Matt Damon, speaking of which, remember, he did that thing with Ben Affleck.

They had a whole bunch of internet things.

I think I had a meeting with him.

Oh, Ashton Kutcher, but he wasn't going to be able to do it.

He's successful.

He's made

Coinbase, Uber.

He's in.

Let's not laugh at it.

He's laughing all the way to the bank, Ashton.

I mean, Dunran.

You could say he's successful just like, do you see he's married to?

Jesus Christ, they're good looking.

Yeah, they're like,

that's like Tom Brady Giselle hot.

Yeah.

You know, one time I was in LA, last time I was in L.A., I think it was, I was eating at

Deli in Beverly Hills.

I'm blanking, Nathan House.

And this table full of people with lots of kids were next.

I was having a meeting.

And my person I was...

Kids are like 45, right?

No, no, little kids, like screaming little kids, essentially.

And I wasn't hearing them because I have screaming little kids.

And so I, and the person with me is like, oh, they're really noisy.

And I turn and the person sitting right next to Ashton Kutcher.

It was, he, and I know him from all the tech stuff, but it was funny.

He was, he was with his kids, with screaming kids and his wife.

And it was lovely.

Nonetheless, that's a separate story.

This is going, there's going to be a place where celebrities are going to have to deal with this.

And very few can do this on their own.

And they don't know what to trust.

And so I'm a little more positive about this than you are.

Thank you.

And something, have they asked you to be on it?

Have they asked you?

You could do a lot of NFTs.

I know.

I don't have the time.

That's the thing.

I'm like, oh, where should I go?

Like, I don't know who's what and who's where and who's lying.

And, you know, misled.

I don't know.

You know, it's one of these, it's a shakeout period.

So I don't mind this.

I don't mind it.

It makes sense for someone to do it.

I think it'll probably get purchased.

But, you know, and then the other celebrities don't trust.

That's why they got Jeter Woods, Tony Hawk, Simone Bye.

They're like, what?

I know it's worth something.

And they're always in the FOMA FOMA position.

Like, what am I losing out on on my brand, my personal brand?

So, anyway.

I used to work at Adelaide Cantors in West Los Angeles, and I quit slicing cold turkey.

I quit slicing cold turkey.

Did you work at Cantors?

Oh, no.

I went to Cantors a lot, but I was usually very fucked up after a night of parting at El Coyote.

Yeah, okay.

I used to live very close to Cantors.

Yeah.

Very hip area now.

A lot of sneaker stores, et cetera, and things like that.

And lots of hip music and things like that.

In any case, I am sort of interested.

I am wary, but interested as celebrities struggle with this stuff.

And a lot of the stuff that's going to be valuable is going to be celebrity stuff.

It just is.

It's not.

You know what?

I actually don't think it's the celebrities that are going to boom here in NFTs.

I think it's going to be

media companies like Amiramax that has all this iconic imagery.

And I also think sports teams are going to figure out.

the technology and the cat.

I think the, quite frankly, I think the NFL and UEFA and FIFA and the Premier League are going to make a ton of money.

I don't know if the individuals are going to figure this out.

All right, well, we'll see.

Good luck, Tom Brady.

You've had such a hard life.

Let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

W.

Kamau Bell is a comic podcaster and host of CNN's United Shades of America, which I really like.

He's very, we were just talking about Stephanie Ruhl as salty.

He's sort of salty and saucy at the same time.

I really enjoy it.

It's very funny.

His latest documentary series is called We Need to Talk About Cosby, and it delves into the legacy of Bill Cosby and his alleged sexual assaults.

Welcome, come out.

Thanks for coming.

Thanks for having me.

So as a reminder, Cosby was convicted of felony assault in 2018.

His conviction was overturned last year.

Cosby still faces two lawsuits alleging sexual assault.

So

why do we need to talk about Cosby right now

and others?

Why did you pick this?

You know, I don't think I picked it.

I think I was always thinking about it.

You know, this is, I was, as I say in the series, I was born in the 70s.

I'm a black man who eventually became a stand-up comedian in large part because of being being inspired by Bill Cosby himself, a comedy special.

And, you know, I also tried to live my career in a way that I learned from Bill Cosby, be good on stage and do good in the world.

And so, you know, as I said, in the series, I am, you know, I'm a quote-unquote child of Bill Cosby, as a lot of us are, of all races who were born into Cosby's America.

And, you know, when we started the production on this, Cosby was in prison.

So it felt like now that he's gone and he will either spend the rest of his life there or he will come out as a very, very old man.

Maybe it's now time to have this very difficult talk about Bill Cosby.

But as we say in the series, and as we all know, he got out of prison, which made the conversation more charged and more heated, but maybe more necessary, if not more dangerous.

All right.

Talk about why it's difficult to have that conversation.

Is it because of the juxtaposition to, you know,

Dr.

Huxtable and how he was portrayed?

And everyone's like, oh, no, not that.

Or what, what, what's the, and then there's all kinds of issues around it.

Talk a little bit about the challenges.

Yeah, there's so many pieces to this, but like, if you think about the Me Too movement and the powerful men who fell, and I believe mostly white men who fell during the Me Too movement,

none of them was anybody's hero.

You might have liked their work, you might have liked their careers, but you might have respected them for some reason, but they weren't your hero, and they especially weren't your childhood heroes.

So, and then you combine that with what Cosby was, a lot of people's childhood heroes like mine.

Then you combine that with the fact that Cosby's black, which means for black people, we are at at a deficit of role models in the public sphere.

We don't get equal access to that, even though we put a lot of money into entertainment.

And so it feels like that we can't afford to lose him.

It feels like, and also he had an over 50-year career where for the majority of it, he

we fought like he was a good person and he was doing good in the world.

So it's like, you know, you're talking about people who are my mom, who are the same age as him, who feel like they've known him, you know, since they were adults.

And you talk about people like me who were just born into a world of Cosby is a good person you should like and support.

And then younger kids who maybe just caught the stuff on, younger people who caught the stuff on reruns.

But there's just a lot of generations of people who came up under Bill Cosby and thought that he was the example of black excellence we should all be aimed for.

Yeah, you just trigger some memories when I was in college going to pick up my girlfriend at the sorority and there were 80 young women all huddled watching something intently and they were watching the Cosby show.

And my girlfriend Melanie said, yeah, every Thursday night, it's like a religion.

So my question is, do you think his celebrity ended up protecting him much longer than it should have?

Or did it end up being

hurting him in terms of just

prosecutorial aggression?

Like, what role did fame play in all this for him and the case?

Well, I think as it did for many of the, again, we go back to the men of the Me Too movement.

The celebrity protects you until it doesn't, until the society shifts.

I think a lot of this is about, you know, when Cosby came into show business, we weren't that, we were still basically remnants of the studio era, where if Hollywood thought you were going to be a star, they changed your name, they changed your hair color, they lied about your age, they put you in new clothes, they said, This is the person you're dating.

And if you're gay, we don't care, you're dating a woman.

And so, there was a whole sort of like crafted image that Cosby was still in that sort of era of Hollywood.

And as we've gotten more connected and more social media and more internet, those things fall away.

So, I think that your fame is protecting you less than it used to, but still, your power and privilege can protect you.

So, I think the fame certainly insulated a lot of these men, including Cosby, from the consequences consequences of their action because the structures it played specifically in Hollywood.

If you're making money for the industry, then they're going to look the other way about a lot of things that you shouldn't be doing.

And they don't have to be illegal or they don't have to be criminal, but they just think you're going to get more access to whatever you want.

So there's that.

And then I also have to say the fact is like, the fact is, is that...

I do believe that in a country that is so prevalent with racism from the very bottom to the top, that there are certainly white people

who are excited for Cosby's downfall because he's a black man falling.

So these things can all exist.

And I think for a lot of people, it's hard to understand that, yes, all of this is true.

Powerful men get protected.

Cosby was a powerful man.

But as he's being dragged down, racism and white supremacy is a part of

what is dragging him down.

But it doesn't mean he didn't, as I believe, rape and assault over 60 women.

So when that happens, that was an interesting part of the discussion.

I remember, I think he may even brought it up at one point, but there was certainly discussion about that.

When you look at that idea of a fall from grace, he did have protectors for a long time.

And where you were on the Cosby spectrum, some people who were his supporters, who said something got very pilloried online.

At the same time, you know, those who went after him really went after him.

So can you talk a little bit about how it played out on social media and also in the public sphere of what he represented as an icon?

Well, you know, the social media is not often a place good for nuance.

So I think that like whatever side

you sort of slightly feel on, you have to dig into your side if you're going to get out there in those social media streets and argue.

That's true also of the media oftentimes.

When you go on these shows, you have to really pick your side and dig in.

My whole career has been about trying to bring nuance to conversations.

So this whole series is about trying to bring nuance to this and go, some people want to act like Cosby never did anything good for anybody, which is just simply not true.

There are many black people in Hollywood, and especially behind the scenes,

who can point to the starts of their career from Cosby hiring them.

You talked about advocacy for black stunt performers.

Exactly.

And that was a story that I didn't know.

And most people seem to not know when I tell it to him, that he is credited as being the most important and key figure in integrating stunt performers and getting black stunt performers to be hired to do stunts for black people as opposed to white men being painted black.

So, you know, there's it's so, and I go, and if we don't talk about that stuff, we're losing history.

And I think that's important at a time, especially when we have school boards around the country debating if we should even teach accurate history.

And so for me, it's like, but if if you're going to talk about that history, you have to talk about the other things that

all the allegations too.

You can't separate these things out.

And he also funded black filmmakers like Melvin Vincent People.

Yeah, he contributed to,

apparently, to Malcolm X,

Melvin Vinn People's first film, Sweet Sweetback.

So there, yeah, it's not about, we want things to be either or.

And I feel like it's like,

as I learned in improv, often it's yes and.

Yes, and.

So it's really interesting because I'd be curious if the relationship to Hollywood's black community, you sort of have a, you know, Sidney Poitier just died and obviously another icon,

almost untarnished, I mean, completely untarnished, I think, sort of one of these wonderful,

another life-changing actor for me at least.

And how does that, what is his relationship to the black community now?

Probably non-existing, correct?

Or not?

Yeah.

I mean, I think it depends who you are in the black community.

You know, I think that for some people who have never met Bill Cosby, they still feel very close to him and they still see him as their dad or their maybe their grandpa now.

And they still, and I've heard from people online who say, I worked with him and he was good to me.

So this stuff is all bizarre.

And so I think that, like, and there's people who I feel like who did work with him and go, I didn't see anything, but I believe these people.

And so I have a hard time knowing how to talk about this publicly.

So, you know, I think that there, there, it depends on the person.

And for me, it's all about, you know, evolving through this.

Like, I didn't want to believe any of this stuff.

I wish I didn't believe it because

it would be easier to keep him in the space that i had him in before i learned about all these things but if we don't deal with it this is the thing that the film really is pointing towards it's an opportunity to learn for cosby to teach us something else how do we create because it's not about one man it's not about any it's not about carvey weinstein it's not about bill cosby it's not about any one individual man it's about how do we create a situation in the industry and in America, but specifically in Hollywood right now, so that if you are the lowest person on the the call sheet, if you're the person whose job is just to watch the coffee, if you see the number one person on the call sheet doing something that you think is a problem, that you feel empowered to go somewhere and have somebody investigate that and that you won't be fired or suffer consequences, that the people who run the project you're on will prioritize a safe, nurturing work environment over profit.

And I don't, you know, you know, any standard doesn't have to be criminal activity.

It could be just the fact that we see all these stories about someone like Joss Whedon, where it's like he just does not work well with others, it seems like.

And so, but

can the PA on the on the on one of the superhero movies go, Joss Whedon is being a jerk without being fired?

I'm sure I'm sure not.

Although, I'd argue, you know, you have shitty men, the shitty men list.

There was just the West Elm guy all over TikTok.

He's just a bad date.

Like, and it's sort of, it comes a little mobby at some point.

There is an ability for people to complain.

And Morse Joss Whedon is a perfect example.

That started online.

It did start online, right?

Yeah, yes, but it didn't happen.

It didn't, enough it doesn't happen.

Not in real time.

It doesn't happen in real time.

I think that like all these, these are all these lists, like you're saying, are response to the fact that it's not happening in real time.

It's not happening as these things are going down.

So that you can sort of, somebody can go to that person and forget anybody in particular and go to that person and go, somebody saw you doing this.

Can you explain?

And it doesn't mean that you have instantly throw them away.

Maybe they go, oops, I didn't.

I will never do that again.

I'm not, and again, I'm not talking about any particular person, but I'm saying that like if people get checked more often, you're going to get less toxic behavior, or you're going to get people go, I shouldn't be in this business because I'm constantly getting checked.

Or you're going to have the business go, you aren't learning anything.

You have to get out of here.

And the problem is that we still don't live in a society overall, but specifically in Hollywood, where that's the case.

There are sets that are run that way.

I mean, certainly with like all the shows I'm on, it's like we it's very clear and it's very all about your feelings.

And let's talk this through and

checking in with people and making sure that we're not putting people in uncomfortable positions.

So, but it's not, it's not an industry-wide phenomenon.

So, come out, I think it would be impossible to approach a story like this and not have a certain set of preconceived notions about Cosby or the situation.

As you learn more about it, what surprised you or what flew in the face of what you were expecting to learn?

And also, what do you think we don't understand or would surprise us about what went down?

So, I think what would surprise everybody is the thing I think that surprised me.

I think even if you believe these

survivors,

you can sort of put it in a box that is not a great box to put it in, but you can sort of go, Over 60 women, Cosby's a big celebrity.

You know, even if I believe them, I'm just going to file it under 60 one-night stands that went wrong, which is bad and it's criminal, but you're sort of putting them in sort of a box of like these, of a groupie box, which it's not a word I use.

Generally, I'm using it for this example.

But when you look into the stories, you find out that a lot of these, like, you know, there's women who are just in stores hanging out with their family.

There's women who just shook his hand after a show to say, good job, And how

it seems like he works just as hard at his career, that he clearly worked hard at, as he did at sort of bringing these women in, sometimes even grooming them, flying them around the country, really, you know, sort of introducing them as his daughter in certain situations.

He seems like he worked as hard, just as hard at that as he did at his career.

That's something that surprised me.

I think will surprise a lot of people when you hear the stories.

And I also hope people look into these stories deeper, actually, because there's a lot more that we couldn't include just for time.

Right, right.

And then the other thing I think surprised me is that, you know, when we did our first interview with Victoria Valentino, who's a survivor from the late 60s,

we were all sort of nervous that this person would come in and be on edge or be capable of being triggered very easily because they were going to come in and tell their story.

And

after I learned from her and all the other survivors I talked to, and I can't say this is true of all survivors, but the women I talk to, aren't owned by what happened to them, aren't owned by this story.

There are more painful things in their life than this.

They have processed this.

What they want to do is achieve justice for future survivors and make sure that it doesn't happen again, which is why they become the story of their activism was very surprising to me, how Lisa Lot Lublin and her husband, Ben, have worked to help survivors get statute of limitations laws struck down or expanded around rape around the country.

So that they're, it's, you know, they're not, they're not always a bundle of tears the way you might see them on the news when they're giving those victim impact statements at press conferences.

They just, they are mostly there angry and committed to changing things.

What's the state of play now?

Like, where is he?

Is there a good chance he's going to end up back in prison?

Someone told me he was thinking about trying to revive a comedy tour.

Do prosecutors say, you know what, let's let biology take care of this.

He's going to be dead soon?

What's the state of play?

I mean, currently, because of the statute of limitation laws that were on most of these women's, on these women's cases, I don't know that there's any who still, that their cases are still in the statute of limitations within the statute of limitations.

So I don't think that there's any other, unless there's other survivors who come forward with it who are in a statute of limitations, I don't know there's anything that can happen and he can't be tried for what happened with him and Andrea Constant again, from what I understand.

The state of play is I don't believe that any major promoter would send him out on a comedy tour for multiple reasons.

But I also believe that there are venues around the country that would be happy to host him.

He could self-fund.

He's quite wealthy.

Presumably he's quite wealthy.

He could self-fund, correct?

Yes, yeah.

I mean, there's any number of ways he can do it.

But I think you still have to find a venue that wants to take your money.

But yes, I believe there are venues around the country that would host him because, as we know, this is a divisive issue because there are a lot of people who support him.

But he's also

85 years old, I think.

How many 85-year-olds go out on tour?

And also, I know that he, they talked about not going on tour for a little while because of the two civics, because of the two cases that are against him and how that would complicate those cases.

These are civil lawsuits, and that we'll never know.

That's sort of what happened to Ojac in a weird way.

So last question.

What are you working on now?

You have your show and you're on the show.

What do you want to talk about next?

Ironically, I'm still doing my day job, United States of America.

I'm filming an episode this week.

Those shows will be out in the spring.

So it's like...

What are you focused on right now on that?

You know, I mean, we thought we would do one season that was sort of about the pandemic, and now we're in our second season that is still in large part about the pandemic and the response.

And what it's really not just the pandemic, but 2020 overall.

So right now, we're about to tape an episode about sort of how Asian Americans and media got, many got politicized through Trump in 2020.

And it's an episode we're doing an episode about how many Asian Americans who maybe didn't feel like they would didn't find ways to speak out publicly about issues of racism against their community or other communities have really found their voices since Trump and

all his racism, specifically aimed at Asian people in 2020.

Oh, we're all better for him.

We'll see.

We'll see.

We're stronger at least.

Anyway, we need to talk about Cosby Premieres on Showtime this Sunday at 10 p.m.

Thank you, you, Kamal.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks, Kamal.

Thank you.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, Scott, prediction.

Give me a prediction.

Prediction.

So beginning a Q2, we're going to start to, I would say around the April or May timeframe, we're going to start to get data

because Facebook's trying not to break out data around Oculus, but we're going to get data that this thing is a giant flaming bag of shit

in the form of a headset.

I think it's already happening.

I look at their ads.

I'd love to see what the cost of customer acquisition is for them.

People like it.

People like it that it happened.

Can you say more?

I think there's a, I think, well, my prediction is the following.

I think Facebook will do this kind of

two-movement thing.

They're going to realize that it's not selling well, and they're going to come up with all sorts of B2B or other commercial applications like magically we're going to be talking to magically uh ceo um yeah at uh pivot mia but um but you say people like it go ahead i have i haven't met anyone that likes it i have everybody who uses it like supernatural they like a bunch of things on it um a lot of people who use it like it um i was interviewing uh debbie millman who's a designer her wife roxanne gay uses it a lot and loves it like people who use it love it it's an interesting situation i have got to start using all kinds of things all kinds some the exercise this and that i i have got to start using it more i hate to use facebook products but i shall um and i'm going to try some of the others but uh we'll see i don't you're right i don't think it's going to be huge i don't think everyone's rushing my kids don't have any interest in it like none zero zipado they play their video games they like it just on a big screen and i just don't see them drawn to it though that doesn't mean they wouldn't like it um so i don't know but that's an interesting prediction i'm i'm very eager to find out what's going to happen there i just i mean i look at my kids like like a lot of people who are my age, you think that just because you have teenagers, you have insight into the future of all technologies.

But the half-life on usage of the thing, constantly bothering me.

I want an Oculus.

I want an Oculus.

Got it, and

it lasted about as fast as

the Fitbit, just or the fuel band, or name another wearable that's in your drawer.

Yep.

So I'll be very curious.

I think numbers are going to start leaking that this is not, this is not, it might have a niche application.

It might even, you know, have some market.

but this notion that they bet the company it feels like they kind of bet the company on this side well they're saying ten billion dollars towards well this metaverse that's the whole metaverse

metaverse is oculus yeah it's oculus yeah it is i think i just don't myself i don't think they're very creative people so i don't think this requires enormous creativity and so the it's like microsoft when it went into the phone business or you know what i mean like i was like i don't know i don't think that's fair i think their ability to monetize teen depression has been exceptionally creative all right okay i knew you'd bullet that one.

I don't think they're creative.

I think this is a creative environment, and it's going to be hard for them because they're not creative.

Now, I'll have a prediction for once.

We had a really interesting Twitter spaces on Peloton last night, and we talked about Oculus because we were talking about all the mirror,

all these different heads-up displays of exercise, the use of online exercise stuff.

And I have to say, Dan Primack made a very good case that everything will be fine at Peloton, that it will be just fine.

This CEO will

gut it through because he wants to run for office.

I didn't know that.

John Foley?

Yeah, apparently in New York.

And so he wants to make this a success.

He might sell it, but there's no reason he has to.

There's no particular.

And I have to say, I really became convinced because a lot of the people, we had, I don't know, a thousand people in the thing.

People love their Pelotons.

Love, love, love.

And the same thing we were talking about, and they loved.

You know, the attacks they're getting are really interesting and they definitely have problems.

That's not the, that's not,

that wasn't what was said.

But the kind of affection and love of the product that people have, they had 20 or 30 suggestions, all of which were good.

I want more community.

I want them to sell me health stuff.

I want them to engage with me this way.

I'd like them to,

and a lot of the complaints were like, look, their customer service has gotten shitty, but they can fix that.

You know, has gotten shitty.

It wasn't shitty before, but now it is.

But nobody's complaining about the thing.

They love the thing and they're willing to pay more more for it.

There was ideas about bringing together a lot of these.

Like if you have a hydro and a Peloton and a this and that, that you bring them together so you don't have to pay $50 across all of them a month, for example.

There was one idea that Peloton could be buying up some of these things because everybody's stocks are depressed because of Peloton's stocks being depressed.

Anyway, it was interesting.

I feel like that was correct.

I think they'll be just fine.

That is my Yeah, the MPS on Peloton is substantially higher than Apple or Netflix.

It's got one of the highest MPS scores,

net promoter scores as well.

Well, Netflix is mentioned as one of the potential buyers, which was interesting.

Anyway, Dan was saying.

It's weird.

I don't see that.

I know, but it's around.

He said the rumors are on.

Anyway, I was very fascinated by this.

You can listen to it on Twitter, but it's because they now can tape these spaces.

But I was sort of the

audience had some amazing creative suggestions, and I thought, oh, these are people invested in a brand.

You know, it would be interesting, and I'm serious, you should do the same thing for Oculus.

I'd be very curious what Oculus users think about.

That's a great idea.

I'm going to get into that because I feel as if I don't know enough about them.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Okay.

Anyway, Scott, that's the fascinating show here.

We had, you know, we had Hooker Blindness and we had Kamow.

I don't see anything.

I just see women who are interested in me

and men.

I'm going to speak to Ando on your behalf.

I'm a little annoyed at him.

I'm not happy that he did that,

especially for George Hahn, really.

I don't like George Hahn being disrespected.

That's my feeling.

He wasn't disrespected.

I'm telling you,

he's the hot one.

He gets to cancel last year.

When he said, hey, I've got to cancel.

I'm like, no.

Why?

He's so important.

I would just be so aggressive.

Anyway,

nonetheless, this is a great show.

We'll be back on Tuesday for more.

As always, there's so much news happening.

It's going to be really great.

And we're again.

It keeps coming.

It's like the mail.

It just keeps on coming.

Very excited.

A lot of these things we're talking about are going to be discussed at Pivot MIA.

Anyway, please read us out, Scott.

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin, Ernie Ingertott, engineered in this episode.

Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend.

Pivot Miami, February 14th to the 16th.

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Come see some of the most interesting CEOs, some of the most interesting people, and Kara Swisher.