Q2 Quarterly Review: The State of the World According to Pivot

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Speaker 15 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.

Speaker 14 And Kara, I am no longer an Olympic hopeful. In the trials for synchronized swimming, they did a mandatory drug test and they came back and they said that they found some urine in my THC.

Speaker 14 Oh my God.

Speaker 14 And I guess urine is is a banned substance.

Speaker 14 Get it? Found urine in my THC.

Speaker 15 I got the whole situation. What do you think of that?

Speaker 14 That's always something else, huh?

Speaker 14 I think she will play an important role, not only in athletics, but in this ridiculous standard that includes THC as a performance-enhancing drug, which it is not.

Speaker 14 It's a life-enhancing drug, I'm convinced. I think it can help you sleep better.
I think there's real utility in THC. But I think she'll go.

Speaker 14 I think she's going to pay a price, but I think they're going to revisit some of these rules.

Speaker 15 Yeah, that would be good. That's a shame, though.
A big athlete, a big athlete.

Speaker 14 It is a shame.

Speaker 15 And then, you know, there's all kinds of things going around the Olympics. There's political things and people protesting and people protesting against the protests.

Speaker 15 And it feels like it's going to be a bit of a mess, I have to say. So I'm glad you're not going in that, in other words.
But listen, we're going to do a fresh new thing.

Speaker 15 I mean, obviously today I would talk about China and Didi and all kinds of things that are going on, which we should talk about at another, at another date.

Speaker 15 But I think today we're going to do something that's new and fresh, which is it's the end of the second quarter and we're going to kick off something with a little different today our quarterly review series

Speaker 15 we are going to hold ourselves accountable the way we call we hold other people accountable so like any good business it's good to take stock of how well you've done so far and forecast what the future might look like so going forward every quarter we're going to do a roundup of the biggest wins and fails see how well we did with our predictions and also make some new ones and then some of our friends at pivot will give us their takes on what's coming in q3 and beyond

Speaker 15 All right, let's kick off to start with a look at the biggest topics and issues of 2021 so far, and let's declare some wins and fails.

Speaker 15 First off, Scott, the biggest topic of the entire year so far has obviously been coronavirus recovery.

Speaker 2 The coronavirus has changed life as we know it.

Speaker 14 These are scenes from the world living with coronavirus.

Speaker 15 We've talked about it a ton and a half over the last year and a lot in the last six months. What do you think the major wins and fails have been there?

Speaker 14 I think the biggest win has been the vaccines. I mean, vaccines are the most wonderful product ever invented in humanity.
They represent global cooperation and science and truth.

Speaker 14 I think the most disappointing thing is that, and hopefully, I think America's comorbidities, our arrogance, our politicization of things that we should pull together on,

Speaker 14 and having what was supposed to be the most innovative, wealthiest,

Speaker 14 tech-enabled, the majority of pharmaceutical companies are here, the most robust. You know, we spend more money on healthcare than anyone in the world.

Speaker 14 You'd like to think the most robust responsive government in the world that can defend the shores and, you know, 5% of the population and 20% of the infection.

Speaker 14 So how we responded to this, and you can't just blame the government, but how we responded as a people,

Speaker 14 there's just no getting around it. We, we bought this terribly.
Now, having said that, American firms with the global cooperation of German firms and

Speaker 14 Turkish immigrants who immigrated to Germany. I know you know those folks.
That these

Speaker 14 vaccines developed in record time are just an incredible, I don't want to call them a gift, an incredible achievement of humanity. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 15 You know, I'm going to be pro-internet again. The internet worked.
Look, the internet helped us in terms of work and

Speaker 15 delivery. I mean, I think, you know, everything that we needed to get through the pandemic was provided, unfortunately, by these internet companies, which did their job.

Speaker 15 Like in terms of that, they, of course, also gained their power, gained even more power over lots of industries, and it will continue to do so.

Speaker 15 And repercussions going forward in commercial real estate, everywhere, everywhere you go, restaurants, retailers,

Speaker 15 you know, communications, meetings, business travel, everything. And so I think the internet worked.
It didn't break down.

Speaker 15 Now, there's obviously these ransomware attacks and all kinds of cybersecurity issues that are ongoing. And just recently, this week has been in the news a lot.
But, you know, it didn't break down.

Speaker 15 And it got us through this thing. Whether people had to stay home.
And I think it was without it would have been really a much different situation.

Speaker 15 How do you, how do you, how would you do that without it? Of course, people have been through pandemics before without the internet, but it certainly helped.

Speaker 15 The only place it didn't help, which is a fail, is education. Continues to be either it just doesn't work for younger people, maybe works for college students.

Speaker 15 It did not work for people.

Speaker 15 under you know high school level it just didn't it was not it would put into sharp relief how badly our educational system serves uh the least among us and also now the most among us.

Speaker 15 And except for people who could pay for their stupid pods or whatever the heck people did. And some private schools that were up and running way before public schools and things like that.

Speaker 15 So anyway,

Speaker 15 to me, the internet was a win and the fail was the digital education and teleeducation. But the other things, I think, pretty impressed in where it's going to go.
That's what I would say.

Speaker 14 That's a really interesting point. It's as if these major internet companies were invented for a pandemic.

Speaker 14 And had we not a robust e-commerce and home delivery and ability to consume data and work remotely, things would have been much worse.

Speaker 14 The second order effect I would point out there is that the ascent of these companies, especially their share price, which now constitute a quarter of all of the S ⁇ P 500, resulted, in my view,

Speaker 14 hampering or diluting our response because I think the people who have a disproportionate amount of control over our government and its response, the shareholder class, 90% of all equity and real estate value is owned by 1%.

Speaker 14 Quite frankly, we're living their best lives. And I think it dampened our response.

Speaker 14 If Amazon and Google stock had been off 40% and 60% respectively versus up 40 and 60%, I think we would have seen a more robust response. True, true.

Speaker 15 I would agree. I would say that their growing power and money is disturbing.
That's, of course, the fail of the win, if that makes sense.

Speaker 15 Moving on.

Speaker 18 Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

Speaker 18 I, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., do solemnly swear. I, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., do solemnly swear.

Speaker 15 Six months into the Biden administration, what's been the biggest win and biggest fail so far? What do you think?

Speaker 14 So I wasn't a fan of Biden. I didn't think Biden had any shot.

Speaker 15 You did not. Who was? And speaking of predictions, Kara the Swisher, but go ahead.

Speaker 14 Did you predict Biden?

Speaker 15 Yes, I did. You kept insulting him.
You kept, first you were in love with Beto, then you were in love with Yang, and then you're whatever. You were kept being in love with all these man, manboys.

Speaker 14 I wasn't young. I was blown.
Whatever.

Speaker 15 Manboys, every one of them.

Speaker 14 Yeah. Anyway, so, and you were right.
And I remember you were informed by Lucky. Lucky was least offended by him.

Speaker 14 And you thought that's how we're going to win as someone who doesn't offend the Fox Viewer. Anyway,

Speaker 14 I thought the biggest win, I think going to the G7 and basically saying we're back and that we need to cooperate on things like climate, things like global taxation, and obviously more cooperation around the novel coronavirus.

Speaker 14 And I'm hoping this biggest win is still ahead of us.

Speaker 14 I think the biggest opportunity is to invade the shores of India and Brazil and other nations with vaccine and reassert our generosity and power as a nation. Fail? What about a fail?

Speaker 14 I don't really have what I'd call,

Speaker 14 I don't, it's hard, it's difficult. This is going to come under bias.
I can't look at any one action and think they really. They screwed up.
I mean, they have to make so many decisions every day.

Speaker 14 They're going to make mistakes, but I don't look at something and think, oh, wow, they really blew it here, which I was thinking every five days in the last administration. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 14 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 15 That's true. When I think is, look, they just opened the White House gates again.
Like they're gone. All that stuff.
And I know it sounds, it's a visual. Like you could see them today.

Speaker 15 Like you're so used if you live in Washington or spend a lot of time there to be able to walk up to the White House. And they, the, the, the gates around the White House were just terrible.

Speaker 15 I don't know how else to put it. It just was like, what has happened to us that we can't control ourselves enough not to do this? And so I like, that sounds dumb, but.

Speaker 15 Opening those gates today, I was like, okay,

Speaker 15 I'm going to breathe for a second. I think that the ability to breathe and not think about who the president is for five minutes has been fantastic.
I think the biggest fail, on the other hand, was,

Speaker 15 and I realize, I understand why they're doing this,

Speaker 15 but the

Speaker 15 reliance on bipartisanship, the non-jamming of the Republicans, these people have, many of them, not all of them, have very much bad intentions.

Speaker 14 Would you win the filibuster?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 15 Like, you know what? These people aren't operating. Every time you give them a chance to operate in good faith, they really don't.
Like Joe Manchin, good luck with the 10 senators.

Speaker 15 You didn't find them. You know, they just are, they're constantly pushing the envelope, whether it's with trans kids or anybody.

Speaker 15 They just, anytime they can, like, whether they're going to redistrict, there was just a story about Louisiana thinking of cracking cities into pieces so they could win.

Speaker 15 They will do anything to hold on to power as

Speaker 15 demographics change against them.

Speaker 14 Well, aren't they just smarter than us? Yes. Aren't they playing a better hand of poker with worse cards?

Speaker 15 Yes. Like, I think we should play just like them.

Speaker 14 The pushback I would do there is that if you don't have some sort of bipartisan cooperation, at some point these solutions aren't durable.

Speaker 14 Obamacare was almost overturned because it wasn't a bipartisan. I mean, there's very few, look at all the shit we're overturning because it was very partisan from the Trump administration.

Speaker 14 That if you don't have some level of cooperation from people who are considered moderates, and I grant you that it's very hard to find those anymore in the Republican Party, but if you can't find a few of them, that anything you pass is just not that durable.

Speaker 14 It gets overturned in four years or eight years.

Speaker 15 Aaron Powell, Jr.: Fair, but they are under the thrall of Trump. And until we knock that out of them, and they will be cooperative when you, I think in this case, you know,

Speaker 15 speak softly, big stick. I'm just on a Teddy Roosevelt state.
You know, you got to, they are in the thrall of Trump and they, you've got to like. show why that is not going to help them in some way.

Speaker 15 And of course, you know, the election is so tight.

Speaker 15 And it's, I just think cautiousness, especially when we're going into this next election, you know, the minute they get control of this, this, the House and the Senate, they'll be insane as usual.

Speaker 15 You know, and the tolerance of Marjorie Taylor Greene is just, you know, and I get the Elon Omar detractors on the same thing. It's not even close to the same thing.
She's threatening to people there.

Speaker 15 The Democrats and liberals in particular are always played by the right, always, every time, every time.

Speaker 14 We suffer from both sides.

Speaker 14 We like to acknowledge.

Speaker 14 We always like to, we always like, I do think we as progressives always want to acknowledge the argument on the other side, even when we shouldn't.

Speaker 15 Yep, exactly. I get that.
I get it.

Speaker 15 They take advantage of our good.

Speaker 15 i don't have good nature i think they're i just would slap them hard and slap them continually until they stop and make sure that they didn't like get up again on on the on the the ones who are doing all this incredible damage and try to find of course the ones that are cooperative but i think bipartisanship is overrated by this administration okay earlier this year we saw so many big tech hearings first we have mark zuckerberg chairman and chief executive officer of facebook Sundar Pachai, chief executive officer of Google, and Jack Dorsey, chief executive Officer of Twitter.

Speaker 19 We want to thank all three of you for joining us today. We look forward to your testimony.

Speaker 15 Who are the real winners and losers here? Mark Zuckerberg, the American people, perhaps? No. That's a no, hard no from Karen Swisher.
Who do you think from these tech hearings?

Speaker 15 There was one good one, David Cicillini.

Speaker 14 Oh, yeah, you stole my thumbnail there. I thought individually representative Cicillini threw the best hearing.

Speaker 14 I do think that actually after a slow start with people not understanding technology, I think some of the hearings were really well handled.

Speaker 14 In terms of individuals, I think Tim Cook has done a genius job of disarticulating himself and his company from quote-unquote big tech, as has Setchinadella and Microsoft.

Speaker 14 They've managed to remove themselves from a line of fire. China.
China, it's really interesting.

Speaker 14 China's looked at what happened here and made China has the most interesting thing about Didi being banned is that China has assessed Didi, there's a bunch of them.

Speaker 14 100%. But China has basically made,

Speaker 14 observed what has happened here and has said, big tech is too powerful and is bad for that society.

Speaker 14 We are going to check their power and ensure what has happened in the U.S. does not happen here.

Speaker 14 And regardless of whether you think it demonstrates an autocracy and that's not how business should be handled and it sends chills through the bones of anyone wanting to invest in a Chinese company, those are all valid concerns.

Speaker 14 It's just interesting to think. The Chinese are smart people.
That government there is, they are very smart. And they look at us and they think, no, we're not going to let it get there.

Speaker 14 They believe we have been overrun and it's too late here. They believe, oh, no, you're done.
You've been overrun.

Speaker 15 It's Josh Hawley and Amy Klobuchar on steroids. That's what it feels like.
It's like, whoa, you know, you hear their concerns about privacy. Yeah, I think that's right.

Speaker 15 They're doing what we should do in a much more democratic way. They're just deciding it.
And that's the specific.

Speaker 14 The systemic, legally supported way.

Speaker 15 Yeah, yes. It feels like, look, it's just like, we're the sons of bitches, not you.

Speaker 14 It feels Chinese.

Speaker 15 It feels like we will be abusing being the surveillance.

Speaker 14 That's something they would do in China.

Speaker 15 You know, I'm sorry. I'm not, I have no, I agree with the directionality, perhaps, but not the methods.
This is just, this is chilling to entrepreneurship.

Speaker 15 It is chilling to people who are going to start companies and investors and everyone else.

Speaker 15 It's, I get why they're doing it, but it's like we're the only assholes in town is not really the best way to go about regulating tech. But what do you think? So Tim got out.

Speaker 15 Mark got slapped around a lot, right? But still, the stock's at an all-time high.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I think Facebook's been hit pretty hard, although

Speaker 14 their stock price keeps going up. I think, to be optimistic, this is who I think wins.

Speaker 14 Our tax base wins.

Speaker 14 Our national parks and our Army and our Navy and food stamps wins because through global cooperation and shining a light on these firms, we recognize they are not paying their fair share.

Speaker 14 Investors will win. We will do, there will be a breakup.

Speaker 14 It might be a year, might be 10 years, but whenever you disarticulate these assets, it's a creator for shareholders because you find that when YouTube no longer cooperates with Google, because they're separate companies, you have more competition and more shareholder value.

Speaker 14 Neva, the subscription search engine, will survive because Google now knows that they're being looked at.

Speaker 14 And if they just want to take billions of dollars and use their heft to force people not to work with other upstarts, you're going to see the next six months, we're going to see more startups, and we've said this, than in the history of the modern U.S.

Speaker 14 economy. And the reason why, the reason why, is because small businesses are emboldened to actually compete and investors are emboldened to invest

Speaker 14 in the greatest job creator.

Speaker 15 So many people leaving bigger companies. I think it's also pandemically.

Speaker 15 People are leaving their marriages. This is what's supposed to be.
Or they're getting married or they're leaving their jobs or they just, they just have to get out. They got to get out.

Speaker 15 In any case,

Speaker 15 I think it'll be slow going. I'm a little bit more like, uh-huh, they're not going to get got for a very long time because this ain't China.
And in fact, we're like the polar. We just literally don't.

Speaker 15 They have so much money. They have so much lobbying power and they do actually have the power.

Speaker 15 So as much as I like Lena Kahn at the FTC, they're trying to block her, Tim Wu at the Biden administration's doing all the right things. I just don't think the judges are going to allow it.

Speaker 15 So I am, I think these are nice hearings, but.

Speaker 15 I see it much slower, and I think very little is going to pass. And especially with some of the political partisanship around conservative bias, which is untrue, I think that's a problem.
All right.

Speaker 15 Fourth, Scott, earlier this quarter, you called, we're moving these through these fast. You called cryptocurrency a mini revolution.

Speaker 14 It's a cryptocurrency you can trade for conventional money. Oh, so it's a hustle.
Yeah, it's a hustle.

Speaker 15 Who's winning? Who's not? The shareholder class, corporations, China, Elon Musk, the environment? Please break it down.

Speaker 14 So I think cryptocurrency, the meme stock movement, Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement are all have all very

Speaker 14 righteous components of them and are movements that in and among themselves are justifiable.

Speaker 14 I think the incendiary belief beneath all of them that's powering or making, pouring fuel on the flames, if you will, is income inequality.

Speaker 14 And in 2008, when stocks were allowed to fail, when the markets were allowed to drop to their natural levels, people of my generation got an opportunity to buy Apple at 12 bucks a share.

Speaker 14 It's now at 140. They had the opportunity to buy Amazon at 130 bucks.
It's now at 3,400.

Speaker 14 We have decided that my generation, that a half a million or 600,000 Americans dying is bad. But what would be tragic is if we were to let the NASDAQ go down.

Speaker 14 So we borrow $6 trillion against a younger generation and an unborn generation credit card so we can prop up and artificially inflate assets, which has created a lack of opportunity for a younger generation that wants their shot at buying things on sale.

Speaker 14 And the result of that is that they're inventing their own asset classes. And one of those asset classes that they're rallying around, and a lot of them have proof points to say, look, boss,

Speaker 14 you capitalize on incredible dislocation and volatility. We weren't given that opportunity.
So we're going to create our own asset classes and our own volatility.

Speaker 14 The innovation there, it's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. There's so much capital going into FinTech and DeFi that you're going to see a ton of interesting products and services.

Speaker 14 I was sort of a skeptic. I think a lot of that was boomer and jealousy that I missed out on the run-up, but you're going to see a lot of big winners and big losers.

Speaker 14 I think a company like Coinbase is probably not going to hold its value. I think it's

Speaker 15 the coin itself, but a lot of people are not buying the companies around it, correct? That was what you said. You're not buying the actual coin.

Speaker 14 I don't have the confidence. I don't have the confidence to pick a coin.
Everything just looks ridiculous to me. I don't understand it.

Speaker 14 The only investment I've made in the crypto space is in Ledger, which creates the

Speaker 14 Nano, which is kind of the premier cold hardware storage wallet. 15% of all crypto is stored on these things.

Speaker 14 But I think it's exciting. I think it's exciting for young people and also the big winners here.

Speaker 14 For the first time, there are as many people of color as a percentage an investor in the stock market and in these assets because of things like crypto and because of these online trading platforms.

Speaker 14 It has brought in a new generation of investors. Here's what I think.
That is very important.

Speaker 15 That's the corporation and the government are going to wander in here and break it all up.

Speaker 15 It'll be much more regulated in a year from now.

Speaker 14 Well, they're doing it in China.

Speaker 15 They are China. We got to move them in here.

Speaker 14 So you're bearish on it.

Speaker 15 I am. I'm not bearish.
I just am like, guess what's about to happen to these? You know, you know, the people that were originally involved are all sort of, some of them are con men.

Speaker 15 Some of of them are sketchy, some of them, they're all going to be replaced by like JP friggin' Morgan. You know, I mean, just like they can't keep the rich people can't keep their mitts out of this.

Speaker 15 And so, you know, you're going to see a lot more corporations coming here and they're going to want everything, you know, they're going to gentrify this neighborhood. I just think they are.

Speaker 15 That's what they're going to do, this, this crazy neighborhood. And they already are doing it.

Speaker 15 And so I think that there, you know, what's happening in China, of course, another crackdown by China on Bitcoin because it is a threat to the yuan.

Speaker 15 Anyway,

Speaker 15 I think powerful people understand it's powerful and therefore we'll move on it. All right, last one.

Speaker 15 We've had so many conversations about goods and evils of social media this year, especially following the January 6th capital attack.

Speaker 19 Today, we will be holding a joint hearing entitled Disinformation Nation, Social Media's Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation.

Speaker 15 What wins and fails can we call it here? I say my win over my interview with the parlor CEO CEO was a good one, but go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 14 I'm not sure I call that the global win for social media, but

Speaker 14 anyways,

Speaker 14 look, I think that when two out of three people have joined extremist groups on Facebook, that group was suggested to them.

Speaker 14 When I think you have algorithms that continue to amplify divisiveness versus inclusiveness, and when components of the insurrection, which in my opinion is just one of the most damaging, one of the most terrible things that has ever happened in our country, when you see social media kind of at the center of it, I think that things have, hopefully we've hit peak bad social media with people trying to hunt down the Speaker of the House and the vice president.

Speaker 14 And I just don't think Twitter nor

Speaker 14 Facebook can just shrug it off. I think, and I'd like to think the American public realizes that they played a role.
And And also, to be fair, so do Fox.

Speaker 14 And I think to a lesser extent, because I think they're much more thoughtful,

Speaker 14 is CNN.

Speaker 14 And that is, do we need, does media need to figure out a way to not provide the fodder to polarize people online and to take these this divisiveness and then use technology and processing power to scale it?

Speaker 14 Well, I think

Speaker 15 we'll see. I think they're continuing to allow the big lie to go around.
A lot of the Trump bullshit is still out there.

Speaker 15 I think, you know, they move on to whether it's, you know, there's some stuff around AIDS drugs that are just terrible. Like, I don't know.

Speaker 15 I just feel like they just are hoping we don't, you know, we're lifting the rug up and, oh, God, it's ruined over here.

Speaker 15 Okay. The wins and fails then are what? You think it's, it can't get as bad.
That's your, that's your win is that it can't get any worse is essentially.

Speaker 14 Okay, I know. Look, I think Facebook and Twitter, and I want to acknowledge I'm, I'm addicted to Twitter and I have a lot of self-awareness.

Speaker 14 I just got off with Sam Harris, who's one of my heroes, and he just reminded me that

Speaker 14 you become where your attention is. I'm spending too much fucking time on Twitter.
And as a result, I become more terse. I look for reasons to dunk on people.
I try to distill thoughtful

Speaker 14 arguments into snappy, quick ways to encapsulate them. I am much too concerned with other people's view of me.
And it just struck me that, Jesus Christ, this thing I'm addicted to.

Speaker 14 I don't think I'm addicted to anything as much as I talk about substances. I don't have an addictive personality.

Speaker 14 But Twitter and Facebook, specifically Facebook, have been, in my opinion, probably net negatives for society. The wins, you would have to argue.

Speaker 14 I actually think Snap and Pinterest, who I was not optimistic about, have done a great job.

Speaker 14 I think that the creativity at Snap, I think Pinterest trying to take more of an editorial lead around, I don't necessarily, I thought the decision they made this week was a bit ham-handed around some of the content they're going to remove around weight loss or diet ads.

Speaker 14 But anyways, my point is, I think it's hard to deny that both those companies haven't carved out really robust niches and great businesses. I think they've done a great job.

Speaker 14 And also the biggest winner, the biggest winner globally in the internet is a social media platform called TikTok.

Speaker 15 Well, which is affiliated with China. We'll see where that goes, actually.
That'll be interesting. I think they're in a little more trouble now with these.

Speaker 14 Interesting. See what happens there.

Speaker 15 Interesting. I would say you're not going to be able to do that.

Speaker 14 But that algorithm, the TikTok algorithm,

Speaker 15 very strong. I would say you're correct.
You are addicted to Twitter. You are.

Speaker 15 All right. We're going to go on a quick break.
We'll come back. We'll do our self-evaluations by taking a look at how we've done with our predictions.

Speaker 15 What we got wrong, and more importantly, what we got right.

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Speaker 15 Okay, Scott, we're back. We make predictions every week.
Sometimes we're wrong, sometimes we're right. Let's start with what a manager might call areas for improvement, as they say in HR Speak.

Speaker 15 Those predictions we got wrong, or shall we say in some cases, they're not just not right yet. So in February, Scott said Twitter should and will buy CNN.

Speaker 15 What happened? It sold itself to Discovery. What

Speaker 15 CNN did, essentially. What do you think?

Speaker 14 Well, the problem is they got halfway there, but the the CEO wasn't there for the afternoon strategy session

Speaker 14 of Twitter. Twitter should absolutely buy CNN.
Its stock has gone up.

Speaker 14 They're moving to a subscription model.

Speaker 14 I think the stock has doubled in the last 12 months, and they could have picked up CNN. I don't know.
I think there'll still be an opportunity.

Speaker 14 But

Speaker 14 I think that would be, if you had the most, in my opinion,

Speaker 14 the best journalism in what I'll call real-time news, which I believe is CNN, coupled with the kind of the pulse or the heartbeat of breaking news anywhere.

Speaker 14 I think when news happens, people have a tendency to go to Twitter right away. I think it would be an outstanding, I think one plus one would equal three here.

Speaker 14 I don't, I think because of what you talked about, the fact that it's now part,

Speaker 14 let me be clear, them being part of this Discovery Plus thing only means there's going to be a ton of hard to yet imagine.

Speaker 14 divestitures and spin-offs because that thing right now makes only slightly more sense than if say AT ⁇ T.

Speaker 14 I think Jeff Zucker's very happy to be at the top of this it's not going nowhere that's my i'm gonna push back on you scott i think you're wrong twitter should maybe buy it but it won't jeff does a fantastic job but he whether there is going to be a lot of moving parts at this new discovery thing specifically because of the single share class of stock specifically because

Speaker 14 because uh david zasloff should enjoy his time in the sun because he's going to throw up uh and it's not his first quarter earnings but his second as a public company and a bunch of other people are going to come in all right.

Speaker 14 Okay. All right.

Speaker 15 Okay. We'll see.
We'll see. I just think these guys manage to play golf and cuddle up quite a lot.
And I don't think that's what's going to happen here. Anyway,

Speaker 14 a golf and a cuddle.

Speaker 14 A cuddle.

Speaker 15 A business cuddle. A buddle.

Speaker 14 That's just so you know, that's what all us white guys do. We play golf and then we cuddle.

Speaker 14 That's what you got us figured out.

Speaker 14 You got us figured out. And then we burn dollar bills to light our cigars.

Speaker 15 Read some of the coverage of the deal. It feels so cuddly and romantic even.

Speaker 14 Oh, it was so fucking obnoxious with the Steve McQueen post.

Speaker 15 I when i said that of course i got a call from these that's on people they're like come and visit i'm like i'm not cuddling it's not happening anyway um

Speaker 14 come have a steak i'll have a steak with them

Speaker 15 okay we made a few predictions next uh about apple scott predicted apple would launch its own search engine

Speaker 15 new its own social network new and it might acquire a peloton new so why isn't tim listening to us tim cook

Speaker 14 Oh, I see where we're going with Jim Cook.

Speaker 15 I'm seeing you make more predictions.

Speaker 14 I see the point of this show. We see them.

Speaker 15 I'm cooking next, but go ahead. Okay.
Go ahead. Tell me why.
Why isn't Scott listening? Why isn't Tim listening to you, Scott? If at all?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I don't know. He has a habit of adding a lot of shareholder value.

Speaker 14 Look, I think they are going absolutely going vertical.

Speaker 14 I still think if Peloton comes down in price, they'll acquire them. But where they're going is with another connected device.
And that is the next connected device from Apple will be the car.

Speaker 14 You're right.

Speaker 14 The auto industry, it's really industry has transitioned from a low margin manufacturing business to a higher margin software business that used to be worth $100 billion globally that's now worth $700 billion because of Tesla.

Speaker 14 And I think that Apple

Speaker 14 looks at Tesla and says, sorry, guys, here we come. Your lunch has just gotten too big.
We're going to take some of that.

Speaker 14 And so I do think that Apple is going to make some, is going to increasingly go vertical into your home, into your car, in search. I think I was wrong 100% on the social thing.

Speaker 14 I think they look at social and think, Jesus Christ, we want no part of that. And it's an ad model and they couldn't charge.
I don't think they could charge.

Speaker 14 They're all about apps and payment and premium. And I don't think they could charge for social media networks.
So that one was a big fail and a big miss. I still think Peloton

Speaker 14 ends up in the hands of a platform who can better monetize its incredible attention and its rabid customer base of some of the most influential people in the world.

Speaker 15 Your thoughts? I agree with you on Peloton. I think it will not do a search engine.
But a search engine, it'll change just the way Amazon does a search engine of sorts.

Speaker 15 you're searching on it so i don't i think it will peloton and things like that i think cars you're right i think uh eyes and visuals yes those are the things it's going to be coupled with devices that's what they're going to do health health care especially all right in february i predicted ted cruz would lose re-election in the midst of the texas power grid failure controversy um he has not he has not been up for re-election yet but i feel like he's going to eventually lose re-election i stand by that i stand by that the end of june aircut state

Speaker 15 i mean eventually everyone No, no, no, there's some people running against him. I think

Speaker 15 he's such a putz. And so it's 20 seconds.
You know, he just

Speaker 15 it's really clear to me that he is the most vulnerable Republican. That's what I say.
I think nobody likes him. So I'm going to stick with it.

Speaker 14 I disagree. I think Texas is proving itself to be batshit crazy if they vote for Ted Cruz over Beto.
Political predictions?

Speaker 14 The most vulnerable senator in America right now is someone who's consistently kind of cut run on big issues and is the most coin-operated senator in the United States. And that's Marco Rubio.

Speaker 14 All right.

Speaker 15 Last one. In early May, both of us predicted that the Facebook Oversight Board would let Trump back on the platform.

Speaker 15 Early June, Facebook announced the former president is suspended for two years and can't return until, quote, the risk to public safety is receded. I've never been happier to be wrong.

Speaker 15 That was a surprise to me. I'm glad they threw it right back in their face.
And I'm glad Facebook did the right thing.

Speaker 14 Great. Okay, we were wrong.

Speaker 15 We're glad to be. We have low expectations for these people.
So the fact that I think they did it only because that oversight board was better than they are, than the actual managers.

Speaker 15 And they pushed him right into a corner. That's what I think, which was good.
It was a good corner to be pushed in.

Speaker 14 Oh, that's right. I forgot about them.
The UN board.

Speaker 15 You know what they did? They showed a set.

Speaker 15 They showed a set. They got it to happen.
And that's what it was a good decision. And we'll see what happened.

Speaker 15 Of course, they couldn't quite do suspend it for good the way Twitter did, but I'll take it. I'll take it in the wind column.
It's better not to watch his crazy press releases go out.

Speaker 15 And of course, Ger or whatever. What is this?

Speaker 14 What is this?

Speaker 15 Getter. That's right.
Getter.

Speaker 15 That's not happening.

Speaker 14 It got hacked, apparently.

Speaker 15 Oh, God. Donald Trump.

Speaker 15 I'm sorry to laugh.

Speaker 14 That makes you happy.

Speaker 15 I'm like, oh, come on, stop it.

Speaker 15 All right, let's talk about the predictions. We got completely right.

Speaker 15 On January 15th, Scott predicted, quote, consumer stocks and the consumer economy is going to roar for the next 12 to 24 months, adding colorfully, people are going to go ape shit with their spending and their consumer discretionary stocks are absolutely going to rip.

Speaker 15 And it did. That same day, Kara predicted Lady Gaga would be, quote, off the charts of the inauguration.
And she was.

Speaker 15 So good for us, better for you.

Speaker 15 Like predicting Lady Gaga is going to be good is not a really hard one. But I did predict Elon Musk was going to be good on SNL and he was.
And you did not. You did not.
Trust me on that one.

Speaker 14 You got me there. So

Speaker 15 with the consumer stocks, where are they going now? People are worried. They're worried.

Speaker 14 So you had

Speaker 14 a trillion dollars pumped into, literally into consumers' bank accounts through the CARES Act. And

Speaker 14 then you had an additional half a trillion dollars in savings because people weren't going to the Olive Garden or going to Disney World. So you have a trillion and a half dollars.

Speaker 14 You have individuals with not only with money, but also pent-up demand for consumer products. And you have a supply chain

Speaker 14 that's been constricted, giving them all kinds of pricing power.

Speaker 14 Sort of the perfect storm of good things for the consumer companies that were, one, able had the balance sheets to survive and also had the foresight to start investing in technology.

Speaker 14 When you see how companies have reshaped,

Speaker 14 you know, Panera, a company I'm involved in, now gets more than 50% of its food starts digitally, whether it's pickups,

Speaker 14 whether it's delivery. I mean, it's just amazing how some of these consumer companies have reconfigured their supply chains.
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Speaker 14 A lot of them cut costs by 10 to 20%. And then when the economy and consumer spending came back, their EBITDA just ripped.

Speaker 15 Good picking. Good analysis.
All right, another one. On May 7th, Scott said he was going to buy some Dogecoin before Elon Musk appeared on SNL and sell by the time weekend update aired, which he did.

Speaker 15 People actually began selling it off the beginning of the show. And then there was a brief rally during weekend update when Musk joked, yeah, it's a hustle.

Speaker 15 It dropped again, falling to 0.47 the next day.

Speaker 15 Well, that was good. Good job, Scott.
Thank you. You knew that was going to happen.
You did a good job. And then you're not in any of the coin now, correct?

Speaker 14 Don't own any of it. Gonna buy it.
Don't understand it.

Speaker 14 I understand it better than 99% of the public who don't understand it. Do you understand it? Do you own any coins? Oh, yeah, you own coins and we can't find them.

Speaker 15 I don't. I do.
We can't find them. I will find them along.
You know, I also have a bag of marijuana somewhere from 20 years ago and 10 or maybe 100 Bitcoin. I don't know.
All right.

Speaker 15 One prediction we made a few times is that TikTok would get further into e-commerce. In May, they started testing in-apt shopping in Europe.
Well, that was an easy one, right? That was pretty easy.

Speaker 15 What do you think about that?

Speaker 14 Look,

Speaker 14 the biggest, I would argue, the business technological winner of the last 12 months has been the algorithm of TikTok and its ability to take signal liquidity and entertainment and let creators disperse their creativity directly to the end consumer with this fantastic vibe and creativity.

Speaker 14 And then the algorithm's ability to not take the two data points or the two, the liquidity of two data points that Netflix gets. Did you watch it all the way through? Which did you select?

Speaker 14 But take hundreds. Do you comment? How fast do you watch it?

Speaker 14 Where do you go after it?

Speaker 14 And the fact that these things are only 15 or 30 seconds gives them the ability

Speaker 14 and they take advantage of it with what I think is one of the most remarkable algorithms we've ever encountered and calibrate on things that you didn't even know you liked and you do.

Speaker 14 And then if they're able to collapse that with an ability to start calibrating in on the things you want and then serve you a 30-second ad featuring that product.

Speaker 14 Sort of similar to what Facebook, and I think Facebook does an amazing job with their ads, quite frankly, on Instagram. Yeah, they do.
Almost every ad I see on Instagram, I'm like, that's relevant.

Speaker 14 I want a vacation there. I want to buy that shoe.

Speaker 14 Take that to video. That's what TikTok has the ability to do.

Speaker 15 Yeah, we'll see where that's going. Could be interesting.
Let me just say, I agree with you. You know, I just was eating peaches because my mother-in-law bought them after seeing an ad on Instagram.

Speaker 15 They were, they were peaches that direct to consumer peaches. They're delicious.
I'm just saying that's what prompted her. She says, I never lose Instagram, but then I saw this ad.

Speaker 15 I just had to buy them and they're delicious. Let me just say.

Speaker 15 Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back with our friends at Pivot and their predictions for Q3 and beyond, as well as some of our own.

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Speaker 15 Okay, we are back with the prediction segment of our quarterly review, looking into Q3 and Beyond with our friends at Pivot.

Speaker 15 Let's start with the labor shortage from Congressman Roe Conna.

Speaker 21 Hi, Karen Scott. Roe Conna here.
My prediction is that next quarter we will see a decline in the labor shortage. Many women are going to return to the workplace.

Speaker 21 As you know, the primary cause of this labor shortage is women who had to leave the workplace because child rearing disproportionately fell on them. And this is why we need child care policy.

Speaker 21 Two million women who had childcare responsibilities had to leave with kids out of school. If we can get child care in place in this infrastructure bill, we will see the return to quicker.

Speaker 21 We also need policies that will help integrate women back into the workplace, particularly young mothers who left. That should be the focus of our policy.

Speaker 21 But some of it will happen on its own as schools are opening, as camps are opening, as we are seeing the pandemic hopefully winding down.

Speaker 15 You like that, Roe, Connor, don't you? Roe.

Speaker 14 I like that Roe.

Speaker 15 He's a good guy. I'm just reading his new book.

Speaker 14 It's coming out of the book. He's a very likable guy.

Speaker 15 Listen, I think he's right at the same time. Really? I don't think the child care policy is going to pass.
What do you think?

Speaker 14 You don't think it's going to pass? You don't think it's being

Speaker 14 included in the infrastructure bill?

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 14 Well, that, again, that's nothing but a refusal to invest in the middle class.

Speaker 14 And it's also becoming an existential issue for us. And that is women are having fewer kids because they've basically decided it's a fucking awful deal for them.
And

Speaker 14 if we don't make more long-term decisions that propagating the species is important and one of the ways you do that in capitalist society is ensuring that women have

Speaker 14 guarantees of their job when they come back, providing childcare. Regardless of the morality of it, you're going to see our economy start.

Speaker 14 I mean, look what's happening in Japan and Italy, where women have figured out having kids is a bad deal.

Speaker 14 We need to do it for the long-term economic health. The thing I'm most frightened of,

Speaker 14 I mean, I think there's actually some wonderful things about this labor shortage. It's like for the first time in 30 years, there's always a tension between capital and labor.

Speaker 14 For the first time, labor, I don't even say this has the upper hand, but has a hand here. Yeah.
Small hand.

Speaker 14 Finally has some bargaining power and finally has some agency, like can ask for 12 bucks an hour instead of 10. Kind of like a junchu.
So I hope it goes on for a while. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I agree. I think they have their upper hand for now.
For now, they do. And as soon as people return to the workplace, they will not.

Speaker 15 But there has to be something in place that isn't unions, that's something else. What is the next version of worker power that is consolidated? That's really what's interesting.

Speaker 15 It's very easy to break workers apart. It really is by companies.
And this is a moment where they need. the workers more and they have to provide more.

Speaker 15 You know, someone, I was talking to someone in a store. They're like, oh, having a hard time.
I'm like, why don't you give them more stuff?

Speaker 15 And someone else next to me is like, yeah, why don't you give them more stuff?

Speaker 15 Like, it was like, you know, it was sort of like, oh, they had never even occurred to to them that they could be better employers.

Speaker 15 So it's interesting. We'll see what happens.
And of course, there are small businesses who really do suffer if they have too many costs, but come the breaks right now.

Speaker 15 And I think that workers do have power.

Speaker 14 In our economy, we generally bucket stakeholders into three different buckets. The first is consumers.
The second is investors/slash shareholders. And the third is workers.

Speaker 14 And we have decided that consumers are the king, that shareholders are the prince, and workers are the pauper.

Speaker 14 And we make purposeful decisions.

Speaker 14 When we cut unemployment benefits to try and help businesses gain the upper hand to get people back to work, because they will literally have to live in their car unless they take that job for 10 bucks an hour.

Speaker 14 We are prioritizing shareholders. over workers.
And shareholders

Speaker 14 have seen the NASDAQ quintuple in the last 13 years, while workers have seen minimum wage go from 725 to 725.

Speaker 14 The best union we have in the world right now, and I'm not a fan of universal basic income, but the most wonderful thing about this, this CARES Act, is it's finally given workers, frontline workers, some leverage that they haven't had in 30 years.

Speaker 14 They can say, well, you know what? It's not a choice between this shitty job and starving.

Speaker 15 Away from this situation, we need a child care policy, period.

Speaker 15 It's so embarrassing that we do not have one. It is just, I just, the other country, we're in embarrassment.
And that's really, you know, that's the lowest rung on the totem poll.

Speaker 15 And that's really, it's so, it's so

Speaker 15 ass backwards, as, as my,

Speaker 14 one of my relatives would say.

Speaker 15 It's ass backwards. Anyway, next up, a prediction from Lightshed Partners Rich Greenfield on the future of streaming, one of the things we talked about a lot.

Speaker 22 In terms of predictions, I think the one everyone should be focused on is Disney buying out Comcast from their Hulu stake early.

Speaker 22 It's becoming more and more apparent that Disney needs to have one sort of full offering for direct to consumer, not Disney Plus and ESPN Plus and Hulu, all as separate entities.

Speaker 22 I think they're going to buy Hulu out early. There's already an arbitration battle that's been going on between the two companies.
I think it ends soon.

Speaker 22 Disney buys out Comcast at a pretty significant valuation, but then collapses the services into one unified streaming offering.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I like that. I'm agreeing.
So not that.

Speaker 15 I think Comcast should also have bought it FYI. FYI.
Are you going to say Peacock again? Go ahead.

Speaker 14 Well, that's the thing here.

Speaker 14 It might be man-bit stock here. It might be Comcast

Speaker 14 buying out Disney because

Speaker 14 Disney stock is up, but Comcast has to do something.

Speaker 14 Comcast needs a bold move here. So I wouldn't, I think Rich might, it might be the other side of Rich's coin here.

Speaker 14 And not that I'm petty, but Rich slapped me down on Twitter when I said before Quibi launched that it was going to be DOA. And he said Quibi will be a success and that he had seen Quibi content.

Speaker 15 But throwing Quibi in his face.

Speaker 14 Comcast, the interesting player here to watch is Comcast. Hulu, he's right, though.
Hulu will not be an independent property for more than 24 months. Yeah, agree.

Speaker 15 Agreed. I agree.
I think Comcast got to get there's rumors, you know, that Paramount, you know, Sherry Redstone is prepping the thing for sale and that now she's got to be a seller versus a buyer.

Speaker 15 And I think the stock was up and now it's down again or whatever. In any case,

Speaker 15 there was a lot of talk on several smart newsletters I read about that, about what would Comcast move in here? Then you can't really own CBS and MBC. So we'd have to diversify here.

Speaker 15 Anyway, get rid of it.

Speaker 15 And so they have to make a move. Comcast has to make a move.
Absolutely. And maybe it will be buying Discovery Warner when it goes through that period of fallowness that you have been predicting.

Speaker 15 But I agree. Someone's got to make a move here.
They've all got to make the big moves because they're not big enough. They need to be bigger.
Any other predictions on streaming? I think he's right.

Speaker 15 I think you're right, Scott. I think you've taken his prediction and made a better one.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I think Rich has got something going on. Look, the biggest thing in streaming is going to be these guys go vertical with different types of offerings.

Speaker 14 I think the most interesting thing is going to be Disney Plus when it starts incorporating

Speaker 14 offline offerings. I think they're going to expand it to special access to parks, cruises, vacations.
And

Speaker 14 I think, if you will, OTT, OTT and video games are the only media that's streaming, and they're going to verticalize into other entertainment.

Speaker 14 If AMC hadn't skyrocketed and became way too expensive, one of those guys would have picked it up and gone vertical into theaters and turned AMC theaters into like Disney experiences.

Speaker 15 It's still, it's still, it's still, you know, even though F9 and some others like A Quiet Place 2 have done really well at the box office, it's still, no matter what, those things are going to get pulled into all of this.

Speaker 15 Everything's about streaming and being bigger in the experience, whether it's the experiential of a theater or offering these movies.

Speaker 15 It's going to be all wherever the consumer wants, wherever they want it. And that's where it's going.
And whatever Hollywood says, it's not going back to the old days.

Speaker 15 Although Quentin Tarantino apparently bought a movie theater, the Vista, in Los Vilas, of Los Angeles. But that's just romantic quaintery.
So we'll see. Anyway.

Speaker 14 That's like a rich

Speaker 14 Republican buying a football team. Exactly.

Speaker 15 I'd like it. And he only is going to have it on film.

Speaker 14 The biggest and boldest move

Speaker 14 in streaming over the next 12 months will have one word Comcast. They've got a quarter of a trillion dollar market cap, very smart, very aggressive.
And they've got

Speaker 14 10 million subscribers right now. And supposedly, that's inflated when you look at how many people are actually doing it.
And there's no way they're going to admit defeat.

Speaker 15 That Brian Roberts is very smart on the deals, although Peacock, as we make fun of it,

Speaker 15 deserves to be made fun of. Anyway, let's go to a friend of Hibbot MSNBC, Stephanie Rule, for a prediction on infrastructure.

Speaker 23 Hey there, Kara and Scott. It's Stephanie Ruhl here talking infrastructure.
To me, infrastructure, it's like getting a dog in a bathtub.

Speaker 23 You never get all four of those legs in the tub, no matter how much that stinky dog needs it. And I'm sad to say I'm not sure anything is going to happen.

Speaker 23 I think from the president's perspective he absolutely wants a bipartisan deal done. I think he would have taken something that was less than a trillion dollars.
Now it's bigger than that.

Speaker 23 And if he were to sign something, it would be a huge win, right?

Speaker 23 But there is absolutely no chance that Republicans are going to stand with Biden in doing this partial hard infrastructure deal that's that's then linked to the soft infrastructure deal, why would they do that?

Speaker 23 That's like the greatest, most giant, enormous win for Democrats.

Speaker 23 And the other thing they're leaving out with this, we'll just go at it alone, you can't just go at it alone without the Senate parliamentarian weighing in on this.

Speaker 23 Remember in the American Rescue Plan when Democrats wanted to push raising minimum wage in there, it was the parliamentarian who said,

Speaker 23 permanent minimum wage has nothing to do with temporary COVID rescue. We're not going to do that.
So they don't know what this nonpartisan parliamentarian is going to say.

Speaker 23 And separately, my last point, this whole argument that it's Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema are the only ones standing in the way, they're not.

Speaker 23 There are a whole lot of centrist Democrats who represent blue-ish or swing states, states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, who are also not going to sign on to just the infrastructure package that Democrats would do going at it on their their own back to will they get something done on infrastructure unclear but the current standoff doesn't feel good

Speaker 23 and by the way Republicans would love to see this happen they would love to say we agreed on a deal on a bipartisan basis and Democrats asked for too much they're the ones who don't want bipartisanship so yes it's this ultimate game of politics right now I leave it to those in DC to figure this all out but of course they're gonna go home because nobody has a better schedule than Congress does.

Speaker 23 And we'll see what happens. But right now, I'd say infrastructure deal, it's a dog in a bathtub.
See you, Kara and Scott.

Speaker 15 All right, Stephanie, dog in a bathtub. I'm going to let that metaphor stand, although it's.
What is she, Warren Buffett?

Speaker 14 What's going on with her? I thought I was the only one that ate edibles around here. Dog in a bathtub? What's going on?

Speaker 15 Stephanie, you're wrong. The infrastructure bill will pass.
I think it will pass.

Speaker 14 Like a dog in a bathtub bill? This will pass.

Speaker 15 This won't pass. I think they're not.

Speaker 15 Politics is politics, but this is good politics. And I think it'll pass.
I think, you know, it'll be a watered-down version. It'll be things you don't like.
And I agree.

Speaker 15 You know,

Speaker 15 I think it'll pass. What do you think? I think she's wrong.
Dog, not. You can wash the frigging dog eventually.
Put him in the shower, Stephanie, just so you know.

Speaker 15 I'll come over and wash your dogs for you if you'd like. Thank you.

Speaker 14 We shower our dogs every day. One loves it, one hates it.

Speaker 14 A little information on me.

Speaker 14 So look, I think it passes. And I think the reason it passes, or one of them puts it over the goal line, is the disaster in Florida.
Agreed. I think it was a very stark and ugly reminder that

Speaker 14 America isn't a country. America can't claim to be the wealthiest country in the world.
America can't be a beacon of hope, a beacon of progress and prosperity if our buildings pancake.

Speaker 14 It's just, so I think that

Speaker 14 this is, and Biden was smart to go after this issue first as kind of

Speaker 14 a tempo for his legislative agenda, because I do think there there are a lot of Republicans that have bridges that are falling apart in their districts. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Speaker 14 And infrastructure, infrastructure is wonderful. The jobs it creates are usually great middle-class jobs.
Good for the economy. Yeah, it's good for the economy.
It makes us feel good about ourselves.

Speaker 14 It sends the right signal to people.

Speaker 15 Good for jobs, good economy. You see, did you see all those Republican governors signaling to get vaccinations? Because they're so low in those Republican states, those heavily Republicans.

Speaker 15 They're all the very conservative governors like to get a vaccination. Because, you know, 99% of the people dying from COVID right now don't have vaccinations.
99 guess who?

Speaker 14 Guess what they didn't do?

Speaker 15 Get a vaccination, yeah.

Speaker 14 Well, they didn't get vaccinated.

Speaker 15 They know, people know, get economy, it'll help the economy for FFFFS, whatever you say, for fuck's sake.

Speaker 15 Anyway, all right, last prediction: we don't agree with you, Stephanie, or your dog, and your dog, your dirty dog. Anyway, pre on antitrust.

Speaker 14 It's like a dog in a bathtub. Let's go.

Speaker 15 Preet is pretty. We invited preet because I know how much you regard preet.

Speaker 14 Oh, of course we did. Let's bring in Preet.

Speaker 15 All right, Preet. Let it roar.

Speaker 14 There we go.

Speaker 17 Hi, Kara and Scott.

Speaker 17 Over the next six months to a year in antitrust developments, we might see renewed antitrust action against Facebook and other large tech companies by new and aggressive Federal Trade Commission chair, Lena Kahn.

Speaker 17 On the legislative side, keep track of a package of six antitrust bills that are being pushed by a bipartisan group of legislators led by Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Speaker 17 Lastly, President Biden is expected to sign an executive order that will target corporate consolidation in the tech industry.

Speaker 14 All right.

Speaker 15 Well, you know, not so much of a limb there, Preet. But yes, yes, I think Lena Kahn will come back with a hard charge in a new suit with a lot of proof and stuff like that.

Speaker 15 Obviously, these bills are going through. We'll see if they'll pass.
I don't have as much confidence in that. And

Speaker 15 we'll see about executive orders. Scott, what do you think of Preet's prediction?

Speaker 14 Let me just break it down. I'm going to say absolutely nothing, but I am sexy and articulate, and I could put your ass in prison someday.
He just read the newspaper from three months ago.

Speaker 14 What was that?

Speaker 15 That's it. I'm jealous of Free Far.
That's it.

Speaker 14 It's sad.

Speaker 15 I thought it was pretty cool.

Speaker 14 He literally just said.

Speaker 14 It's like we said, we want you to say nothing.

Speaker 15 I'm calling HR immediately. Immediately.

Speaker 14 Anyways, Freak's going to kick your ass.

Speaker 14 How obvious is my jealousy?

Speaker 14 How obvious is my jealousy?

Speaker 15 Anyway, now, Scott, it's it's our turn. What is your big prediction for the next quarter and beyond?

Speaker 14 Okay.

Speaker 14 I was writing a bunch down. You know, something that keeps it authentic here is I don't really prepare.
But anyways,

Speaker 14 some of my predictions, okay,

Speaker 14 I don't know who will be the first $2 trillion company, but the first $3 trillion would be Amazon.

Speaker 14 I think in the last half of the year, the thing about the markets that just amazes me is that it has an incredible ability to see around the corner and ask itself over and over what's next.

Speaker 14 And I think that in the latter half of this year, despite an increase in GDP, despite incredible new business formation, I think you're going to see the private markets do well.

Speaker 14 I think the public markets are going to incur incredible volatility, and we're going to see some of the most

Speaker 14 step change downs in the market. I think we're going to have some of those volatile days in the market in the next six months as the market begins to go, okay,

Speaker 14 $6 trillion in debt.

Speaker 14 A reshaped economy.

Speaker 14 What happens? What happened at the end of 99?

Speaker 14 If you look at at almost every single financial metric on a bar chart that's where the x-axis is time, it's at historic levels except for 1999 and 2007.

Speaker 14 I mean, it literally looks as if history is beginning to rhyme and we don't like the next verse. I think the last half of the year, we're going to see incredible volatility in the markets.

Speaker 14 We talked about Comcast and Disney is going to introduce what I think is the most exciting recurring revenue bundle in the consumer world.

Speaker 14 I think every family is going to have to own it, and it's going to take OTT to offline online, which I think will be super interesting. I like that.

Speaker 14 That's good.

Speaker 15 I like that prediction. I don't really have one except I'm going to make preets for him.
I think Alan Weiseler is going to flip. I'm just making that up.

Speaker 14 I don't know if it's true. You think it's going to flip? He's going to flip on Trump.

Speaker 15 I don't think it's going to matter, but I think he's going to flip on Trump. That's what I think.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 14 That's fodder for a different show, but I look at that and I'm like, I've read a lot of people.

Speaker 15 They're like, this isn't good. He's going to jail for a little while.
And I don't think he wants to go to jail for a little while. My money is worth it.
He's an old man.

Speaker 14 So that's what I think. Alan, the Weiselberg guy.

Speaker 15 I think he's a comfy old man. He's not going to be even a nice prison.
He's not going to.

Speaker 15 That's what I think. So I'm just making that up.
I'm not a lawyer. I just read a lot of lawyers like Preet Barra.
Anyway, okay, that is the show, Scott.

Speaker 15 This is our only show this week, but we have lots to talk about.

Speaker 14 By the way, Chuck, we're going to find out in the next six months. Chuck Todd from Miami is not Chuck Todd from Miami.
His name is Alistair. He's from Delaware.

Speaker 14 He's married to a woman who has a master's in library science. He has, and he breeds labradoodles.
That whole charade, that shit is over. I know who you are, Chuck Todd.

Speaker 14 And also my other big production is Anderson Cooper and I get closer and closer. Our friendship continues to be a good thing.

Speaker 15 We've yet to produce Anderson Cooper too.

Speaker 14 None of that is true.

Speaker 15 Anyway. Scott, that's the show.
Don't forget, if there's a story in the news you're curious about and want to hear our opinion on, go to nymag.com/slash pivot and submit a question for the show.

Speaker 15 Scott, read us out.

Speaker 14 Today's show is produced by Camila Salazar, Ernie Andretod, engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros.
Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 14 Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify, Frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend.

Speaker 14 Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business.

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