Microsoft and Discord, Goldman Sachs' junior bankers and a listener mail question on news consumption

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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 in L.A., Kara, as evidenced by my cool sunglasses and the splief in my mouth right now.

What are you talking about?

I'm in L.A.

Really?

Los Angeles.

Why are you there now?

Where do you, you never sit still, Scott Galloway?

You know, Rolling Stone has no something.

I forgot what it's called.

Okay.

All right.

By the way, I'm going to molest this thing called Earth once we get the all-claire.

I can't.

I used to hate to travel.

Now I can't wait.

Anyway, I have never been.

Yeah.

I have never enjoyed something as much

that I'm this unsuccessful at as Los Angeles.

Really?

Why?

Why are you there again?

What is the, you're just there for Bill Maher and then you left and now you're back.

No, I'm supposed to be doing, I'm supposed to be a consulting producer for some Netflix show.

And because I got associated with it, it's now blown up.

This is WeWork or what?

No, this is GameStop.

Oh, GameStop.

Oh, wait.

You told me about that.

Yeah.

And I'm now toxic.

If I get attached to a project, it's doomed to fail.

We just signed our Vox deal then.

Oh, dear.

We just announced it this week.

Should I run for the hills?

Don't hold your breath.

Don't hold your breath.

I gotta run for the hills.

I think.

Literally, every time I come here, by the way, I just absolutely love it.

I love it here.

I come here.

I do three or four meetings with very credible, important people that my agent sets up with, and they all say the same thing.

They all look me in the eye.

Yeah.

After we have just a brief discussion, you go to their house, I guess, which is the ultimate power plant LA.

And they look me in the eye and they're like, you are a genius.

We must work together.

And I walk out thinking, that was the best meeting I've ever had.

And then what happens?

Nothing.

Crickets.

Crickets.

They love to do that.

That's why I don't go to LA.

I've never made a dollar in L.A.

I don't think I've ever made a my agent.

I'm the worst client.

I've never seen you and nail themselves to your intelligence and tell you how smart.

I have had those meetings too.

Remember Contouras where they did that, where they brought him in and said, Vince.

Remember, they did the whole thing.

Yeah, that guy made money.

Yeah.

I've literally, I've never, I don't think I've ever made a dollar in Los Angeles.

I come here a lot and I love it.

Like, I'm, I listen to that.

So, you know, have I?

I don't know.

No, we will.

We will make it.

Whatever it is we're doing, it doesn't sell in L.A.

I don't know.

Well, it does.

They like being around us because we're smart asses and then they just don't do anything with us.

Who does?

It's fine.

I don't think I was great.

I was like, when I was consulting to Silicon Valley, I don't know.

Maybe I got

a premiere.

You're right.

And they like to invite you to their parties.

That's the thing.

They're like, I remember one big agent.

He's like, do you like to come to my Oscar party?

And then named all these celebrities.

And I was like, no.

And then he had nothing else.

He had nothing else to give me.

Like, he was like, really?

And I go, no, thank you.

No, I'm like this hybrid dog they show off.

They take me to a party and they're like, this is Scott Galloway.

He's a professor.

He's a professor.

They have professors there.

They got some professors.

But

in any case, in any case, there's a lot going on, Todd.

We got to move on from L.A.

Although I have to take a little stop over in Cuomo land.

Did you see the latest one?

His family got special tests.

Literally, what is this guy going to do?

What is he going to be like?

Is he going to be trafficking in PlayStation 5s next?

What is going to happen here?

Is that a bigger crime in your mind?

I don't know.

Says the mother of two boys.

access to or do what bad thing could he do next?

Like, bad, I don't know.

For me,

for our listeners, can you explain what happened to what you're doing?

Andrew,

Andrew, Governor Cuomo, who is already under investigation for issues around creepy man-ness,

is, I think,

creepy manness.

He's also being looked at for nursing homes.

Otherwise known as men.

How he handled elderly people in nursing homes during COVID and misrepresented some numbers about deaths, deaths, essentially.

So essentially, creepy gropiness and senior killing, essentially, the two things.

And now it turns out that he sent health officials from New York to the homes of his family, including his brother, Chris Cuomo, to test them and then rush the tests using state troopers to get to

get them.

You know, if you remember in the early days when testing was like, where can I get a test?

Now, of course, nobody wants a test, but

it was very hard to get it.

You and I were confused about the whole thing.

Like, how do you get the test?

What are the good tests?

What are the bad tests?

And so it seems like a long time ago, but it was a real problem.

And he was sort of facilitating the situation.

Now, what's really interesting is when I was like, are you kidding me?

Like, what is this next thing?

Like, PlayStation 5, I think I made a joke about it.

And it was like, well, every governor does it.

And I'm like, you know what?

This guy, no what about isn't with this guy.

This guy keeps piling on the shitty behaviors.

His brother, Chris Cuomo, I think he's really in big trouble.

I mean, it's just really, he was reporting.

I know he had COVID and stuff, but he really, it's just, it's not a good look for anybody.

And his whole, like, now his whole row thing on TV, which was adorable at the time, is quite unadorable.

I don't know, Scott, what do you think?

Well,

I mean, first off, you and I being confused about something doesn't mean it's, it's unusual.

You said you were confused about testing.

I didn't, I don't, to be blonde, I think we're in the pylon stage.

I don't think that's that big a deal.

I do think a lot of governors probably leverage their position of power to justify.

It's not a pylon, it's just more.

I'm sorry.

It's not a pylon, it's just more.

I mean,

why give him an out on these kind of behaviors?

I agree, but

everyone is now saying, oh, my gosh, can you believe the governor leveraged his position as the head of the second largest state in the union to get access to early testing?

I don't, quite frankly, I would be shocked if the majority of our political leaders have not committed a similar infraction around testing.

But anyways, Chris Cuomo will be fine.

De Santa.

He's dreaming.

Chris will be fine.

He's dreaming.

With vaccines.

Yes, I get it.

I get it.

Chris will be fine.

He's dreamy.

And he's in the media.

And you're right.

The whole bro thing.

It's the governor.

They'll get all the heat.

Chris is fine.

It'll be interesting to see what the governor does.

What's interesting is still the majority, I believe, of New Yorkers and Democrats don't want him to resign.

Yeah.

So it'll be interesting.

But yeah, it's anyway.

So you think it'll go away for him, all this to?

No, I think his political career is

the present value on emotion and scandal is so high.

The discount rate is so high.

And that is in the moment, it just feels like these individuals will never recover.

Yeah.

And a lot of them do.

Yeah, I agree.

So

I said that about him.

I said he's not resigning when everyone thought he was.

I was like, absolutely not.

He's going to brazen it out.

He's a brazen person, so he'll brazen it.

But so I don't think he resigns.

But the thing, again, that

and the lesson here is that you don't need friends when you're right and you're popular.

You need friends when you fuck up.

And he doesn't have anyone now.

It's just clear.

all this stuff's come out.

He just hasn't made very many friends.

Anyway, brand Cuomo, what would be the brand thing you would say to him?

Look, a crisis, again,

the other lesson here is crisis management.

Only three things you need to do in a crisis.

You need to acknowledge the problem.

You need to take responsibility, and you need to over-correct.

And he has actually acknowledged the problem around the creeping manness.

He hasn't acknowledged the extent of it.

He hasn't kind of said this is totally inappropriate.

He has acknowledged the issue and said that these women should be heard.

He's made some of the right moves.

I don't think he's really taken responsibility for it, and he definitely has not overcorrected.

But those are really the basics of all crisis management.

And

what's strange is during crises, sometimes it's a huge opportunity.

Jeff Bezos turned a crisis into a brand building event.

Right.

Right.

I mean, and what would be described, if you just looked at what

had happened to Jeff and Jeff's actions and you didn't know how the public was going to react, you might think it was over for Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.

Instead, it became a brand building event.

Yeah.

So what would you do if Team Cuomo, what would you advise them to do right now?

What's the move?

I think he...

Apologize more.

Yeah, I think he has to come out and say, look, this is totally inappropriate.

I'm putting him post-serious law.

I'm holding myself accountable.

You know,

I just wouldn't put myself in that position.

I don't know if I know Tim Cook would.

That's a very Tim Cook answer for me.

I just wouldn't be here.

So I don't know.

I think he's got to get back to focusing on coronavirus,

put in place independent commission,

say let the chips fall where they're going to fall, listen to these women, and then try and be a really solid governor for the rest of coronavirus.

I think people will be surprised how far, how fast it fades.

As long as it doesn't continue.

Although, look, Trump had one thing after the next and he continued.

He just kept.

You know what?

That's such an interesting point because here's the thing.

If you're accused of sexual harassment, you don't want to be accused two or three times.

You want to be accused 30 times.

And that's what's so sad about our society.

Yeah.

Is that if it just becomes

a torrent of information, everyone just sees it as one thing and starts to become numb to it.

If President Trump had just mocked a disabled person and for the rest of his presidency had seemed somewhat dignified, that would have done huge damage.

But because he was doing something awful every 24 hours, it became part of his brand and we became numb to it.

Numb.

He numbed us.

And I think that's the same play.

I think this is the playbook he's using here.

I know it's going to be more cascading.

There's going to be so much more.

There's going to be other things he's found out to have done.

And all of them will now bubble up from the toxic waste dump that is well, everyone now, everyone's going to remember things he did and come forward.

And unfortunately, I think our society

know,

awards virtue points to people who want to say nice things about him when he's popular and awards virtue points to people who want to say negative things about him when he's very unpopular.

I mean, the momentum around the media is incredible.

Yeah, it is interesting.

Speaking of momentum, there's yet another

big tech misinformation hearings underway in Congress.

The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google all published their opening statements.

Jack Dorsey focused on internal tools like BirdWatch and Sundar Pichai warned of the dangers of full repeal of 230.

Mark Zuckerberg took a really interesting tag and talked about Section 230, but his proposal would make Section 230 conditional on companies maintaining a system to remove illegal content.

I wonder who has money to do that.

He wrote, instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying unlawful content and removing it.

Interesting.

Interesting.

We're going to talk more about it after on Monday, but thoughts going in?

You take this one.

I have some thoughts, but you're closer to it and you've been doing a whole lot of things.

Same old, same old.

I think nothing's going to happen.

There's going to be a lot of, did you do this?

And then them saying no, or

I was going to pay one of the political

operatives there up on Capitol Hill money, Bitcoin, if they would actually get one of them to admit they had any culpability in the in the attack.

So I just don't,

nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, honey.

That's what I say.

Wouldn't you love it, though?

Wouldn't you love it if one of them got up there and said, so, okay, so this is what we do.

We have determined, we have determined that the most damaging, most insidious content actually creates engagement because our our species is really flawed so we have these algorithms that figure out not only misinformation but misinformation that rages enrages people and then we promote that content yeah and then we use all sorts of delay and obfuscation so we can run more ads distinct distinct of the incredible damage it does and we are now spending more on lobbyists because All of you sitting up there, despite the fact you're elevated from us, you make all these incredibly bold statements, you're the biggest whores ever on the planet.

Oh, all right.

Yeah, that's going to to happen.

Not going to happen.

Well, and not only that, anytime you say you hear a House Energy Subcommittee, you're like, all right, energy and commerce.

You're kind of like, I don't know if that's must-CTV.

Yeah, I don't know.

I would be shocked if they got a, they laid a glove on them.

I just don't.

I just think it's just not, it's a non-thing.

We'll see.

I mean, you know, there's all kinds of activity going on in all these areas.

It's just they rely on the slowness of Congress and the inaction of Congress.

And I think that's really what's going to go on.

And it's just a kabuki situation.

They'll take a little bit of their, they'll take a little insults.

A couple of Democrats will yell at them.

And what's interesting is a couple people who voted for stop, you know, who tweeted about, who tweeted about stop the steal, et cetera, and availed themselves to the tools of these people and then voted against

Donald Trump being impeached are going to be questioning them.

That's my favorite part, which is like, oh, God.

I just.

Did you see that big tech is now the largest spender on lobbying in the history of

the planet?

Yes.

Yes.

Isn't that crazy?

This whole thing is just, let's see if they lay a glove on him.

We'll see if they actually do anything.

And I doubt that is the case.

I mean, I hate to say that about Congress because they have an ability to do something.

You know, but

I just think the techies are in charge now.

I just do.

Like, right, you know, like Elon

announcing you can buy Tesla with Bitcoin.

Of course, he will keep the Bitcoin.

So he's sort of elevating Bitcoin, which he just invested in, and using his cars.

Someone said it's the world that Tesla is now the world's world's largest mining, Bitcoin mining factory going.

I don't know.

It's just, they can do what they want, it feels like.

Yeah, it's,

look, they play by a different set of rules.

And it all goes back to a very basic thing, and that is we as a species are, you know, we have a brain that's so big we have to be dispelled prematurely from our mothers.

And the brain is so big, it can ask us these incredible questions, but it's not big enough to answer them.

And so into that void is slipped a super being, a god.

And then as it, as a nation becomes wealthier and more educated, its reliance on a super being declines, but that void gets bigger and bigger.

And into that void steps the nearest thing that feels mystical

that you can ask it anything and it sends you back an answer to your query, that it connects you with other people.

And that is technology.

And so we provide technology, its shareholders, its CEOs, and the industry with a level, with just an entirely different standard.

an entirely different standard for what we would have held other industries to.

Well, we will see if they do anything about it.

We'll see.

We'll see.

I mean, eventually, you know, everybody gets their, theirs, theirs eventually, maybe not.

But in this case, not today.

Not today.

I would love it to see something significant, but this, again, is all just theater and these hearings, especially because they're on Zoom.

They're not quite as dramatic as they might be in person with all the pictures, except, you know, all that, you know, the big tables and.

photographers and this and that.

I guess I kind of like it on Zoom because you sort of see what it is.

I thought Zephyr Teachout had the best tweet about what they should ask Mark Zuckerberg, and that is

they know how much every brand and every story has what the profitability is and how much revenue it's generated.

They know and they should be asked, how much money have they made off of QAnon?

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, we really have to get together on this.

I'm going to read us a quote from Abraham Lincoln that I heard last night on this amazing documentary the CNN did about Abraham Lincoln's life, which I thought was quite good.

And I learned things that I didn't know.

This is his last, one of his messages to Congress.

It was narrated by Sterling Brown, who's an amazing actor.

And he read it better, let me just say.

But this quote is exactly what they should think about right now.

We can succeed only by concert.

It is not, can any of us imagine better, but can we all do better?

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

The occasion is piled high with difficulties, and we must rise with the occasion.

As our case is new, so must think anew and act anew.

We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save the country.

I find you disenthralling.

I find you disenthralling.

Disenthrall means, Amanda told me this because she's a word person.

It's de-enslave ourselves from this.

We need to deliver slave.

I know that, but it's just, that's what it means.

And so

let us just say we need Congress needs to disenthrall.

We need to disenthrall ourselves from these tech companies.

Thank you.

I like it.

He was talking about the bigger issue, obviously, the Civil War, and

moving past it and getting together as a country.

But in this case,

people don't realize we spend $700 billion on the military, about half of it.

You could argue it's really half a trillion because that includes things like veteran affairs, but we still spend more than the other 10 largest spenders combined, and six of those 10 are our allies.

So it's just incredible how much money we spend.

And I think the way to get Republicans thinking about this is to say, okay, think about all that money.

The greatest threat to our military isn't some super weapon.

The greatest threat to our military is Russia's continued ability to divide us internally and use these platforms and a general flaw in, I think, our society where it's become so divided because as we become so internally divided and have to focus so much on our internal problems,

we ignore and turn away from

Abraham Lincoln to the military budget to tech people.

I like it.

I'm disenthralling.

LA makes, even though it's superficial, makes you very deep.

All right, we're handing you to the point.

It's because Med Men delivers.

But anyways, let me finish my deep thought.

All right, because we want a big story.

Basically, the biggest threat to our military is misinformation

catalyzed and spread by social media platforms in the U.S.

because we don't pay any attention.

We don't have the bandwidth.

We're so busy figuring out how, you know, who's right, Ted Cruz or Elizabeth Warren, that we don't focus on what Russia is doing to create a buffer, a new buffer in Eastern Europe with Ukraine.

We don't have enough bandwidth to talk about human rights violations you are correct sir that is very deep and important point from los angeles hotel room where you just had room service anyway

here is the big story

microsoft speaking of light things microsoft is in talks to acquire discord a social media app for video gamers it's a pretty cool social media app it's been used for a lot during the pandemic the deal which is not official could reportedly amount to over ten billion dollars discord has a hundred million active monthly users and has of course gained popularity in the pandemic They're using it for all kinds of other things besides gaming books and talking and this and that.

It's been a huge year for video gaming companies, and Microsoft has bolstered much of its gaming business with acquisitions.

In September, it bought Zenimax Media, the parent company of several large gaming studios, for $7.5 billion.

Now, we're not gaming experts, but this is a really, this is interesting.

Microsoft seems very canny these days.

What do you think?

Because of Roblox, there's all kinds of things going on in the gaming industry.

But any thoughts, Scott?

So

the best acquisition of 2020 and i don't like the company but it was the best acquisition of 2020 was when uber acquired postmates and diversified away they turned the pandemic into from a bug into a feature and they diversified and basically the platform the platform that coordinates vehicles to transport something from point a to point b and it doesn't matter if it you're going to dinner if the person in the back is going to dinner or if the person in the back is dinner but they've diversified i thought that was a brilliant acquisition.

The best acquisition of 2021 is this one.

And when you read more about it, it just, I mean, this calls on so many really key business trends that Satya Nadella clearly gets.

And that is the most accretive business action in history is, and I know you're sick of me saying this, moving from transactional episodic revenues to recurring consistent revenues.

I'm never sick of the Rundle, Scott.

Anyways.

People don't talk about it, but the most powerful Rundle in the world is a B2B Rundle, specifically Microsoft Office into the Enterprise.

Yes, indeed.

You got to imagine 99.7% of all corporations with more than 10 people pay a recurring revenue fee for office to Microsoft and for the enterprise.

And it's consistent.

If you renew, that means you're in business.

Or if you don't renew, it means you went out of business.

So

it's the most powerful B2B bundle in the world.

Now, let's talk about the most powerful B2C ones.

There's Amazon Prime, there's Netflix.

Apple One now has 23% of their revenues from a recurring revenue stream.

And you're going to have one company that has a top 10 rundle.

One is B2B and one is B2C because they will tack this onto their Microsoft or their Xbox games plan.

Also, Discord has a Nitro plan, $9.99 a month, $100

a year, and they will end up with one of the 10 biggest consumer rundles.

So Microsoft will be the only firm in the world that has two of the top 10 rundles, one B2B and one B2C.

And I think this will probably, probably make Microsoft again the most valuable company in the world.

Yeah, what's interesting is this is so social.

Microsoft never was very, they made investments in Facebook and others, but this has become such a, you know, I have kids who play video games and it's so social.

It's such a social, like my

playing

Animal Crossing last night.

There's so much sociability to it.

And Discord, I think, has done a nice job here in terms of, and also beyond just games, they've done other things.

It's creating a community.

That's where people went to talk about Black Lives Matter.

Yeah, exactly.

And so it's really interesting that it's sort of a much healthier social network in a lot of ways because it's got a goal, I guess, in this case, gaming or whatever they happen to put into it.

But I think it's perfect for Microsoft as an add-on to the games that are because it owns Minecraft.

It owns a lot of things.

And so

it sort of dominates this area.

And I can't, you know, I guess, you know, Sony, PlayStation, and everything else, but that still doesn't have the same cohesiveness here.

And I like the cohesiveness of what they're doing.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: Well, it also taps into the other, the kind of fourth big tectonic shift in our economy, and that is dispersion.

Because

it's an underlying platform for game developers to develop games and then go direct to the consumer.

And that is, that's the same as, you know, kind of the same platform or strategy as Roblox.

And that is, in my view, that is the, that is what Bitcoin's all about or crypto.

It's basically saying, how do we take out the traditional channels of distribution that are creating friction and unnecessary expense?

And also,

nothing works in terms of consumer preference and product development like the consumer.

So, rather than trying to figure out what an agent who tells me I'm a genius or a producer and gets in my way of millions of people being able to appreciate the dog,

instead, you have now these new platforms.

You're there to kill your agents, but go ahead.

Yeah.

They're really nice people.

Yeah.

I can't figure out why I'm anyways.

Anyways, they make no money off of me.

I don't get it.

Anyway, so but these platforms, right, what's so powerful about Roblox is they say, okay, we'll create a platform for creators similar to what TikTok's doing.

I mean, it's all around the same thing.

It's all, whether it's telehealth, it's all skipping traditional channels of distribution or supply chain to add more value to the end consumer or create or award more of the spoils to the original creator.

So

should Microsoft buy Roblox?

They bought GitHub.

You know, it's moving into these really interesting.

I feel like I'm not smart enough to understand what he's doing here.

It doesn't feel random like some acquisition should should do yeah so he's got github over here he's got you know they've got all kinds of different things that they're yeah but if they have the largest gaming rule yeah they do that and they had not only have the traditional the traditional studio model where they produce games and put up you know 100 200 million dollars behind a huge game and then they also have this community-driven game platform um that's really powerful really powerful i think you're right microsoft is just kind of they've done such a great job of keeping a low profile.

Yeah.

You know, they're really incredibly impressive the way they've handled themselves.

I feel like I have to go see him and have him explain to me what he's doing.

You know what I mean?

Because he's such a like comp guy.

It would be interesting to see.

But they are definitely doubling.

He's very good at doubling down in the areas they're good at.

You know, the one, the one miss I think that they had was with Skype.

They really didn't leverage that in the way that they might have.

They've been pushing heavy into Teams and other things around the pandemic and using it.

And I've seen it being used more for sure.

And I know it's been growing.

But they certainly,

it's certainly an area that they

probably should have gotten Slack, I would guess, rather than Salesforce.

But they've definitely moved into areas.

And Skype is the only area I see where they didn't really

do as much as they should have in things that are naturally theirs.

I don't think they could have gone after Slack because they have a great product with Teams.

They did at one point.

Go ahead.

Yeah, and instead they they developed Teams and Teams actually has a higher MPS than Slack.

And not only that, if Slack didn't work, I think they would be accused of an aqua kill.

And I think that would raise a lot of alarms.

Yeah, true.

Fair.

We think Sachin Danella is brilliant right now.

All right, Scott, let's take a quick break.

We'll come back and we'll talk about the trouble for young bankers at Goldman Sachs.

And a listener mail question.

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Scott, we're back.

A survey out of Goldman Sachs showed that the first-year employees were working an average of a 95-hour week, which is not a surprise to me.

Let's talk about what this means for young people and the company.

The survey started circulating the internet last week and reported that all the respondents had the job, said the job had negatively affected their relationships with friends and family.

77% said they had been victims of workplace abuse.

I'm not quite sure what that means, but

you've been in this position.

I know a lot of friends who certainly have back in the day.

And

it's not a surprise that it's continuing.

Maybe it is a surprise.

Scott, this is your area.

I find this fascinating.

So my first two years out of UCLI, it was a Morgan Stanley and the analyst program.

And they prided themselves.

And to a certain extent, we prided ourselves on, we just worked all the time.

We worked around the clock.

And it was definitely abusive.

But here's the thing.

And also, mother and my children worked at Goldman for five years out of business school.

So I think I'm very familiar with the kind of the investment banking culture when they're talking about whatever.

First off, I think the survey was 13 people.

So this isn't exactly academic research.

And it was all out of the San Francisco office, which I think is kind of interesting.

Look, the wonderful thing about capitalism, and the reason why it's the best economic system of its kind, is it's inextricably linked to the notion of freedom.

And that is

you have the choice to charge what you think you can charge for a product.

You have the choice to figure out, or the freedom to figure out how much you should produce.

It's not nothing centrally planned.

You have a decision as someone who can offer your human capital for rent to who to go to work for, to how much to ask for, to demand a raise and leave if you don't get it.

There's a lot of freedom around these decisions.

And when the free markets result in child labor, or the spread of misinformation,

or teens becoming radicalized on a video platform, platform, the government steps in to tweak, manicure, and regulate these externalities.

And so, when you have software that circumvents minimum wage loss, the government should step in as it did in the United Kingdom and rightfully say these are employees, not contractors.

When our elections are perverted and the greatest democracy in the world is put at risk because of shareholder value, the government should step in and hopefully is.

But here's the thing: there's two sides to this trade.

Right.

And these individuals that also came out at the age of 23 and 24 are making about $130,000 a year.

And so these individuals, quite frankly, have more options.

If you're a 23-year-old who got a job at Goldman Sachs,

you have more options than perhaps any individual in the world.

And here's the thing.

If you don't like the intense work atmosphere, And granted, if it's actually physically abusive, fine, then someone should step in.

And I know the guys at Goldman, they will, if that's in fact the case.

But there's two sides to this trade.

And you've decided that you don't want quality of life or balance.

You've decided that by the time you're 25 or 26, you want to leave Goldman and go make a half a million dollars working at a private equity fund.

And guess what?

Guess what?

That means having no life.

In some, my message to these 13 people would buck the fuck up, bitches.

Oh, all right.

Don't crime your ripple.

That's the other side of this trade.

That like, okay, things have changed in the workplace.

And, you know, I think about, you know, doctors, my brother's a doctor and stuff.

Like, there was the old culture is you're going to stay up all night and you're going to, it's going to hurt.

It's abusive.

It's, you know, and I don't know if you get to be better as a doctor that way.

I think you get tired and possibly make mistakes.

This was always my thing.

I'm like, why are they exhausting you precisely?

And I don't think it's good for a doctor to be exhausted in general.

I get the idea of intensity, absolutely.

And I was thinking the other day that I, you know, I worked at the Washington Post and I did it myself.

I made the trade, which was I stayed there 10, 11 o'clock every night.

I just did.

I sat there and typed and wrote as many stories as possible.

And I wouldn't, it wasn't abusive.

It wasn't always nice for sure,

but I wouldn't say it was abusive, but I just loved it.

And I knew that it would also hurt my friends and relationships.

And it did to an extent, I think, probably.

But I sort of was making the trade.

At the same time,

I think there's a much different awareness in the culture about how the workplace should be.

And that is something that I think it's very hard for people who are older, who went through sort of the grind, the grind and the mill to understand that others don't think this, is this how the workplace should be?

Is this how we get successful by grinding down our young people?

And so I do think it should be, you know, on one side, it can get a little too twee, you know, like, how are you feeling?

I mean,

even now, I've engaged, like some stuff, it's like work-life balance is mentioned all the time.

Even now,

saying I get that.

But I'm saying there are pressures on the other end that it might become more important.

And whether young people want that is really interesting.

It's definitely a push-ball,

much more so than it used to be.

And there was never a question.

It's like,

start type in that story, Kara.

That's that.

And there was never a question by me at the same time.

I literally, and every now and then you'd have a delightful thing happen to you where I remember coming out of the Washington Post

at like 11 o'clock and the things were spinning, the printer, the printing presses were spinning, so you could feel the whole building hum, which was kind of cool, you know, because they were actually making the paper.

And I was walking out the exit, the exit that they have at night, and Ben Bradley and Lauren Bacall were walking in because he was giving her a tour.

He was dressed in a tuxedo.

She was dressed to the nines.

And

he was like, hey, kid, did you finish a story?

And I'm like, yes, sir.

And then it was Lauren Bacall.

And it was like, wow, this is amazing that I stayed up all night and did this work.

I kind of am busy you're that old but anyway i know i'm that old nonetheless i think there is a change in the workplace that if managers don't pay attention to your point could get in big trouble so so if it's just if it's just an abusive culture right so when i was at morgan stanley you weren't allowed to leave literally you weren't kind of as unwritten law you couldn't leave before everyone senior to you which was everyone had already left and it felt like once a week so it was probably once every other week i wasn't as quite frankly i just wasn't as good as the other analysts i wasn't as well educated i got a 2.27 GPA coming out of UCLA.

And I decided that once

every week, every other week, I'd go to work on a Tuesday morning and I would stay till Wednesday night.

I wouldn't go home.

I'd work through the night to show that I was strong and try and impress people.

And that type of behavior was rewarded.

And there was an abused children syndrome.

And that is, I have a little bit of that.

I've created some of that culture in my companies because I was abused.

And the reality is that's not healthy.

And you're right.

And there's more recognition that just grinding people for the sake of grinding people and for bragging rights and some sort of corporate macho bullshit, that's unhealthy.

But the reason why I think that these guys right now, or these men and women are working this hard right now, is that between SPACs and MNA, it is time to print money if you're an investment bank.

And the reins don't last forever.

So I think a lot of this, I don't think this is abuse child syndrome.

I think it's they don't have enough resources.

And the general viewpoint is, well, if we have an opportunity to do a deal, we are going to do a deal.

And if it means you work 90 hours instead of 70 hours.

But again, there are two sides to this trade.

If they want to go to work for Deloitte or Ernst ⁇ Young and make half as much, they can have much more balance in their life.

And my message to young people is this work-life balance up is a myth.

There's only trade-offs.

And if you expect to be making a half a million dollars a year by the time you're 30, which almost every analyst at Goldman does,

get used to it.

Get used to it.

Tough love from Scott Galloway.

Tough love.

It's easy for me to say.

Room service.

I still think there's a lot more coming on this.

I don't know.

I just feel there's a lot of pressures.

Anyway, and probably lawsuits, et cetera.

All right.

Listener mail, we're gonna listen to a question you've got you've got can't believe i'm gonna be a mailman you've got mail

hi kara and scott my name's liam i'm calling you from outside boston my question revolves around news consumption i'm at the early stages of my career i'm 27 and i'm curious how each of you consume the news today and how that's evolved over the course of your careers I've really tried to make the switch from algorithmically served news in social media or news aggregators to going directly to the publishers I trust and choosing what articles I want to read.

I'm also curious what percentage of the news you consume is directly related to your day-to-day work.

For me, I only find it's 15 to 20% and the rest is about becoming a more well-rounded person.

Thanks so much and keep up the great work.

That's an interesting question.

That's a great question.

Scott?

You go first.

I want to think about it.

Well, I actually read the major

Wall Street Journal, New York Times.

How do you read them?

You read them online?

Online on an app.

And I read them a lot, like a lot, a lot all day.

I also, I have to say, Twitter has become my news go-to news place.

And I just, it just is.

It works.

His signal to noise ratio is excellent.

And I find a lot of stuff I wouldn't have noticed.

I wouldn't go, say, to the Atlantic that much.

I just wouldn't.

I just don't.

But I do see a lot of Atlantic stuff there.

I see things I, you know, a lot of these substacks, some of them that I like, like Casey Newton is one that I really like.

And some others.

So I do find them, and I wouldn't have necessarily gone to Cracie's thing.

I see him tweet it, and then I'm interested.

So I would say Twitter would be the place where I get on.

I consume so much news.

It's crazy.

And I do it for work, I guess, and also my, because I love it.

And, you know, I have a

thing with Amanda where she's like, oh, you're going to, you're going to read your news now.

I have to like, it calms me down at night to just consume Twitter information.

Some of it's just jokes and memes and stuff like that.

What about that?

It disenthrals you.

Yes, it does.

you.

No, it enthralls me.

Yeah, it's it's

so Hudson or whatever it was called, DHS, the most valuable retail per square foot in the world used to be those stores in the airport where you'd pick up your newspapers and your magazines and your candy and your water before you got on a plane.

And they're really hurting because people are no longer buying print before they get on a plane.

I used to love newspapers and now I find I have this emotional attachment and I pick up newspapers, but I never actually read them.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, Twitter, absolutely.

I like those email things you get in the morning saying five things you need to know about the market.

But what's interesting is it's gone from broadcast.

I mean, I think I just never watch television anymore unless it's the Queen's Gambit.

And I used to get, you know, used to get news from Dan Rather or whatever it was, or Peter Jennings.

That's just gone.

And then it's no longer print.

It's online.

And it went to algorithmically driven.

But you said something that fascinated me.

You talked to someone, a survivalist, or some, and they asked the question, what is the one thing you would take into

the jungle or a remote area, you know, kind of naked and afraid kind of question.

And I thought it was brilliant when she said another person.

And I think about it now, the majority of the really good information I get is from other people.

And that is, there's a group of people I work with who I just think are incredibly smart and have their pulse.

Maria Petrova, Daniatia, Catherine Dylan, Jason Stavers, Mil Severo.

And they will forward me an article.

And when they forward me an article, I read it.

Right.

So I have my own kind of personal editorial staff.

When we pass around notes for a pivot the night before, I learn from that because I think it's interesting what you and Rebecca find interesting.

Right.

And

so I would say it's, it's interesting.

I've kind of moved to algorithm and then past algorithmic to curation.

And also if something's getting a ton of heat on Twitter, I click on it and I read it.

Right, right, right.

Rebecca, very briefly, what do you, how do you consume the news?

I trust people.

Like I find journalists that I like like their work consistently and I follow them.

And when they elevate something or they have an opinion, I think similar to what Scott is saying is like Twitter.

Yeah.

Well, Kara and I have decided that you clearly have too much time on your hands and we need you to work 95 hours a week.

Yeah, Scott's that already did.

This is the point where you say, fine, pay me $128,000 a year, bitch.

Just somebody put words in your mouth.

All right.

It's tough when you love your job.

It's hard to say.

Like, I hear what Carol was saying.

It's like, that was always hard for me.

It's like, when you love what you do, it's hard to find that track.

But yeah, pay me $128,000.

Good luck on that one.

Okay.

All right.

Here's the deal.

I have to say, getting back to both of them, I work all the time and I like it.

I don't dislike it.

And I make the choice and I work harder than most people and mostly everybody, actually, and make more stuff.

And I like it.

And I make the choices for myself.

So it's interesting, but not everybody does.

Not everybody does.

But

that's the key point in there.

And that is, I don't know,

there are some people who have such genius that they can work 40 or 50 hours a week while they're young and get to a certain level of economic success and relevance in their industry.

Assume you are not that person, because I don't know.

I know some really talented people.

I don't know anybody who's achieved a level of success and relevance and economic security that a lot of the people I know want to achieve that hasn't kind of given up a solid two decades to pretty much nothing but work.

Yeah.

And then what I find is nothing.

Well, pretty, I mean, when I look, I mean, when you really look back on it, when you look at hours,

it's, it's, it's a lot.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with deciding that's not for you to moving to a lower.

If you want to live, look, at the bottom line is if you want to live in New York and or raise a family in D.C., you got to make a half a million to a million bucks.

And the only people that can make that are people who are outstanding at what they they do and i've never met anyone that's outstanding what they do that doesn't pretty much work all the time for a good two decades interesting question when i had a stroke actually that someone said now you can work less and i'm like i'm going to work more i love it i did like you won't that old saying like on your deathbed you're not going to remember work i'm like i liked my work i loved it like and i loved of course i have a very uh big family and a lot of kids but and i love that too but it was interesting that old sort of trope i love what i do i love it and i think scott does and i think you do but But I've gotten there, though.

That's what, that's not what, quite frankly.

That's a better story.

And I believe it.

Mine's not as romantic or as admirable.

And that is at a very,

we didn't have any money growing up.

And it was me and my mom.

And I noticed our lives weren't, you know, could have been a lot nicer if we'd had a little bit more money.

I became very economically driven.

When my mom got sick, it really threw in my face that we didn't have money.

And it was just, I've been just, and I'm not proud to say this.

I have been, I just decided at an early age, I am going to be economically secure.

This is really important to me.

It's a big driver for a lot of people.

And those have been the embers that have burned.

If I, I worry about my kids, because my kids don't, my kids pretty much have everything.

And if I were my kids, the only two things I'd know I have in my life as an adult male would be a Range Rover and a cocaine habit.

So I don't know.

Let me give you, let me reassure you.

I grew up really rich and I work and my brothers work harder than anybody else.

There are people like you and you're exceptional.

And something, there's something in Lucky did something there.

It wasn't lucky.

Lucky lies around and eats cookies and looks fabulous.

Yeah.

He does have great fashion.

I'm just saying, I wouldn't have had that drive.

I wasn't trying to find something I loved.

I was like, that's it.

I am never going to be economically vulnerable again.

I'm just here to say all rich kids don't end up laying it.

But what I'm saying is it's really admirable.

I think it's really impressive.

I just wouldn't have been like, I wouldn't have been here.

And my mom was always like, why are y'all working so much?

I was like, I don't know.

Anyway, this is a a fascinating come to barney's for lunch with me she did that's exactly like why did he what do you what are you doing

come to lunch at barney as my brother's movie they went

really hard and we didn't have carols go buy you a dress that's exactly make sure it's yellow i hate yellow i had one discussion with my mother i'm gonna repeat this she goes she goes she goes i got you a yellow dress and i said i hate dresses and i hate yellow and she said no you don't

that is what she said the buildup was better than that actual story just so you know all right scott I'm going to disenthrall you of the yellow dress story being

nice.

Abraham Lincoln is brilliant.

Everybody watch.

Yeah, Abraham Lincoln is brilliant.

I agree.

You got it.

Divided, we fall or divided, we whatever stand.

It was so good.

I was shocked that it was so good, and Sterling, uh, Sterling is amazing.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

Conojulas crucientes and verdad qualos les encantas.

Ademas delicos trosos de granola nuces y fruta que todos van ad disprutado.

Honey punches devotes para todos.

Tokal bener para sabermás.

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Okay, Scott, prediction time.

It's all your, the floor is yours.

Microsoft will be the most valuable company in the world again.

Okay.

This is

the only company in the world that's going to have a top 10 B2C and B2B rundle.

That's where the world is heading.

And also Dispersion.

They'll have both.

They'll have the benefits of the huge studio game production industrial complex, which still has value.

They'll still put out these huge, you know, iconic games.

But they're also, they've got a platform now for community.

They missed the whole social wave.

This might be their way to kind of get back in, but more elegantly and tap into Dispersion where you take developers and give them direct access to the end audience.

I just think you just read, the more you read this thing, you're just like, this is, you know, how occasionally you put on something and this never happens to me?

Like, wow, this just feels right.

And I look good in it.

I just keep reading about this.

I'm like, God, this is just smart.

This is smart.

Anyways, Microsoft most valuable company in the world.

I think we should, that's a perfect.

That's perfect.

That's a great prediction.

Yeah, I would agree with you.

They already had passed that and they go back and forth with Amazon and I think Apple.

There's a couple of them up in the top there.

But yes, I agree.

I've always been surprised they've been the most valuable and there they are.

But he's just very quietly done a very good job, the CEO, touching it all.

Not flashy, not fancy, but making a lot of good decisions.

And let me just say, there were a lot of bad acquisitions Microsoft made for many years, if you recall all of them.

And so this is really interesting.

And they haven't attracted the attention of regulators, speaking of which, which we'll talk about on Monday, what happened in Congress today, which is happening right now, which is probably zip.

But anyway, we'll talk about it anyway.

Okay, that's the show.

We'll be back on Tuesday.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for the podcast.

The link is also in our show notes.

Scott, read us out.

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

It was engineered by Ernie Endertot.

If you like what you heard, please download, subscribe, recommend it to a friend.

Also, thanks to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burroughs.

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

We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business, where we will disenthrall your asses.

Stop making fun of my hero, Abraham Lincoln.

How dare you?