More hearings for big tech, GameStop stock surge (again), and predictions come true

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway, and I'm here for you, Kara, because you're frustrated.

I'm so frustrated, right?

Okay, so I get an alert last night that I am among the people eligible for vaccines, right? Because I had a pre-existing condition. They added people who have had strokes to it in D.C.

And I had a stroke many years ago. And I was like, oh, yay, finally.
And so I go to the website. Yay for strokes.

Yay for strokes. Thank you to strokey wins.
And, you know, I'm not old enough, but I'm getting close to that. I'm not 60.
Oh, you're close, Ken. I'm close, but I'm not 60.
You're so close to that old

requirement. I get that.
Very, very close. Nonetheless, I like get on the site, which sucks for like at least 10 minutes, right?

Just it won't, you can't, like, it's amazing that you can like get on Tinder and have someone at your house

for some stuff in two seconds and you can't get this. So I get on.

I literally ordered Amazon stuff, Ginger Ellen arrived 14 seconds later. It's like, this is just amazing how bad this system is.
And DC's apparently is pretty good. So I get on, I put everything in.

It takes me like 10 tries to even get them. I'd go through CAPTCHA and all this other stuff.
10 tries to do it. I get to the end.

I put my correct birth date in and I say that I had a preexisting condition. I list it everything else.
I keep saying I'm not 65. And on the website, it says or, not and, it says or very clearly.

I took a picture of it. It's, it's literally the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced.
And I did, and then I'm now, Amanda's downstairs on the phone.

You know, I finally got through after not hanging up on me 20 times. And I've been on 25-minute hold to talk to them.
It's just, I understand the crush of interest,

but it was really like, and it was astonishing, like them telling you one thing and doing another.

I know why people are so frustrated by this thing, but I was hopeful for a moment, Scott, that I could get my vaccine, but not to be, not to be. Well, a couple of things.

One, it is, it is a sad, sad story when you have to live the same life as everyone else but two

don't have to live

to live unlike you too

no you have more white privilege no you have more white privilege anyways uh

look we

in israel they put their best and brightest and basically everybody into the military in britain uh they admire and respect people who go into government and right i think this all comes back to the same place we need to restore faith and the resources that match that faith in our government.

Why aren't the brightest people out of MIT, Georgia Tech,

or kids from high school that show incredible aptitude for technology, but perhaps aren't ready for college and want to take a gap year? Why isn't there a national service that gets them involved?

I mean, this younger generation, this is an ageous thing to say. They just get technology better.
They grew up with it. I don't know.
They understand.

100%. 100%.
It's really interesting because now they have a 60-year-old explain Bitcoin to you. I wouldn't know.

I wouldn't know how if I was older or didn't know how to use a website and I'm really good at it, you'd be able to do it. That's really, you know, I'm sort of this white lady sitting in a,

you know, a mixed neighborhood in DC and good on the computer. And, and it's really,

you know, it's just if you were older, you didn't know,

lots of older people know how to use computers. Lots of different people know how to use computers.
But if you didn't have a great computer ability, like, forget it. Just forget it.

That's my point.

And that is we need

an investment. This is infrastructure.

When you don't invest in the ability to create an interface with everybody that now interfaces with the world vis-a-vis a screen,

their ability to get a vaccination and it has a national interest, that is infrastructure that is a government-run program.

And

when you don't have the resources, when you've underinvested, when you haven't maintained the bridge, the bridge is going to collapse when you need it the most.

And any reduction in infrastructure spending is nothing, again, but a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Because who is most dependent upon infrastructure? Here's the bottom line.

You will figure it out. You will figure it out.
I agree.

The kid or the 70-year-old person from a middle-income or lower-income home that's trying to figure out a way to get their, you know, them and their spouse registered may not figure it out.

Yeah, I've heard tons of stories like that all through friends. And the thing is, what's really interesting about it, it's not that just suddenly I just realized the infrastructure sucks.

I've always known the infrastructure sucks, but it was sort of like it was interesting because I've been very careful to wait in line and make sure and stuff like that. And so it's a really,

I don't want, again, again, then I'm like, I don't want to sound whiny, but I was in line. Like it said it.
And then they just now, interestingly on the website, changed it to and.

even though it was very clearly or in a big black letter. You know what I mean? Like it was, it's, they just change it like very quickly.
And so you don't know,

I don't know. It's just, it's a very kludgy system.
And I don't know what state. I'd love to know if people could write in what states really do well.

This one is fine, but it's just typically kludgy. Just typically kludgey.
Do you know what states are doing really well are on vaccinations? What? Israel.

I mean, actually, that's not fair. The U.S.
is doing better than all but five nations, and it's kind of sad when the U.S. begins to brag that it's number six.
Yeah. But the vaccination.

Way beyond that, I'm thinking. No, in terms of vaccine rollout, we're actually doing fairly well.

We're vaccinating, I think, about two million. I think so.
The numbers are up everywhere.

And, you know, but at the same time, like in D.C., like, and I'll finish this up, is, you know, the mayor's sister died of COVID yesterday, it was announced, which was sad.

Oh, it's incredibly sad, her older sister.

And I think it's her only sister.

It's just

the way this entire process, from the testing, which I finally figured out at great expense, you know what I mean, to

this, to information, to figuring out masks. It's really, it's really, and I understand it's a pandemic, but for some reason, I have this feeling it does not have to be this hard.
It just doesn't.

And it's not because I just experienced it, but really it is. It's extraordinarily hard.
This has brought,

shined a real bright light on things we knew existed.

I figured out testing, no problem. You know why? You're a teacher.
I have money. Yeah.
I had someone come to my house to test my whole family. My kids' school was testing everybody once a week.

And the reality is, I live in a different world. And it's one thing, we live in a capitalist society.
If you're looking for moral clarity, you're not going to find it in capitalism.

But we're supposed to have regulation that doesn't make the delta immoral and corrupt and bad for our country long term.

And when we refuse to go on a war footing, when we insulate, when we segregate, when we disperse to our homes, and we don't have empathy, and when, quite frankly,

it's not thin, white, rich people dying from the pandemic, we don't show this virus what America is capable of.

This virus has not seen the real America, or I guess you could argue it has seen the real America, and it's really fucking ugly right now. Yeah, yeah.
It's interesting because I was like hopeful.

I was like, oh, look, it's finally like, yay, like it's working, that kind of thing. But that's just the way it is.
You know, it's not like tickets for Springsteen when I was. 14 or whatever.

You went to Springsteen? No, when I was in college, yeah, I did. He was playing a Jadwin Gym in Denver.
And he was

not. I was going to take you for a Springsteen person.
Of course, I'd go to a Springsteen. I went to a Kansas concert.
I went to like a Denny concert. Sure.
When I was a kid, Dave Mason. Oh, my God.

I'm totally dating myself. I went to lots of concerts when I was younger.

I went to the Go-Go, Squeeze at the Greek Theater. I went to the Clash at the Palladium.

Dog

knew how to roll when he was 17.

He went to my Army chair. I knew how to do it.
I was like, I'm the Dan Schogelberg concerts. That's

the lesbians. Oh, my God.
That's what the lesbians went. Did you see these things that more young people are identifying as gay and lesbian?

Can you say more about that?

I can't call it. I'm not trans by everything.
They're just, you know, it's so interesting because it's immediately, of course, gotten into a ridiculous Twitter war with a variety of people.

But what do you make of that? What do you mean? I've heard identifying. That's all.
They're just identifying.

Some people are like, oh, now they're being forced to be trans or they're being forced. No one's being bi or no one's holding a gun to their head.
No, come on. Like, they're just identifying.

And let me just say, someone asked me to talk about it. When I came out, it was incredibly difficult, and there was a price to pay.

and i was silent for a long time like a long time and and didn't identify and the fact that people are just comfortable identifying is a good thing and instead they try to make it into this like idea that the media and uh uh lg uh bt groups are trying to for uh plus groups are trying to force others to other to declare themselves it's just you know what

You have no idea what it was like. You know what I mean? Like, not you.

I mean, it's amazing that they're they've turned it into something, something that's really good, that people are identifying themselves better, into something like that they've been coerced.

And then there was one back and forth about how lesbians are being, there's fewer lesbians. I didn't even understand it because they declare themselves as trans.

It just was just like anything that could be good news is taken into a bad place when it gets upon the social media sites.

People don't recognize. I think about this a lot.
My five closest friends, and we all kind of hung out together. We were, you know, you have your kind of circle of friends at UCLA.
Sure.

All of us in fraternities, all living a life that I would describe as frat broish,

reeked of testosterone. Yeah.
Of the five,

three of us gay.

And I remember saying to them when they came out, like, why would you feel so reticent to have told me about this? And they basically said, and they were right.

They're like, Scott, you couldn't be gay at UCLA in the the 80s. You couldn't.
They're like, look at our lives. Look at how people perceived

homosexuality. They're not crazy now, by the way, from a lot of people.
And they were absolutely right.

And then just about the time we started thinking, well, they love themselves and they want to be loved and they love their children and their patriots and they want the same things.

And we started developing some empathy. The AIDS crisis hit.

And the Republican media started turning them into people who deserved a plague. Well, except it did engage everyone.
That's when I came to the city. And create some empathy.
I think eventually.

That was just empathy. That was anger is what it created in me.
Like, that is fucking enough with you people. You know what I mean? Like, people were like, that changed everything.

I thought ACTUP, I was such an admiration of ACTUP. I know a lot of people have gone to it.
They're like, Act Up was so mean. It's like, good.
You deserve some mean. You know what I mean? You people.

So it's interesting. It's interesting.

I had like a total move back when I saw all that stuff coming out yesterday. Like, oh, I remember these people.
It's still not easy. It's still not easy.
Trying to

have many countries they're trying to declare. Try to be an elected Republican leader and be gay.

How many of them are closeted right now because they don't feel, you know, everyone I think immediately goes to very, they cast aspersions on them. But you got to say, look, it's still not easy.

It's still not easy to be in our society who you want to be. Yeah.
Which

at the very basis of America

compared to others. That's what's supposed to, that literally is what America is supposed to be.

I mean, that is, you know, that is exactly what defines America is you're supposed to be able to live the life you want to live.

It's also the number one regret of people on their deathbed is they wish they had lived the life they wanted to lead, not the life that their parents or society wanted them to lead.

Well, let me just say: if I get a vaccine, I'm going to try to live an identifiable gay life.

I want, you know, the life I want to live? I want to live my life on a table with a bottle of Ruin Art Champagne and the Gouber's Beach in St. Bart.
You identify as lesbian, don't you? You do.

What about lesbian?

You identify as lesbian, too.

There's almost nothing. You're literally painting me into the cancel corner, right?

You're painting me into the cancel corner.

I want to ask you one thing. Did you listen to my Sasha Baron Cohen interview? And by the way, congratulations on being mentioned by Andrew Ross Sorkin.
I'm throwing you a bone here.

This is a bone I'm throwing.

So

you constantly toy with my emotions, and I am not going to go here. Think of me, think of me as someone who plays acoustical guitar, depressed and sensitive.

Yeah, that is a lesbian, but go ahead, Keith. Or like a great Dane, big, strong, but emotional and sensitive.
By the way, I'm getting a great Dane. I'm getting a great Dane.
I'm so excited.

I can't believe I'm here. I can't visit you now because it'll jump on me and it's taller than me.
I can't do it. I have, all my life, I grew up with a great Dane named Thor.

All my life, I've wanted a great Dane. I'm asking you about Sasha Baron Cohen, but who looks like a great Dane.
I'm not going there. I'm not going there.
You're trying to trigger me.

You're trying to gaslight me. You can call me a fan at the end.
That was true. You and Sasha can ride off into the sunset together, as far as I'm concerned.
Andrew Ross Thor can mention me.

That's my consolation. In an interview with Bill Gates.
That's my consolation, guys. That's good.
Is Andrew Ross Thor can be considered? You know what?

I'm going to let you at the end of the show tout your predictions. How about that? How about I do that? Go on.
All right. Later in the show, you can tout yourself.

But the fact of the matter is, you should listen to the interview. Sasha Baron Cohen was very good.
We all should. We all should.
We should all listen listen to your podcast.

That one is good. You like it.

Let me get right on.

Then listen to the dog much. Let me get right on.
I'm getting a great day. And listen to the dog lady.
No. Who has it?

I'm going to listen with my favorite lesbian, Senator Lindsey Graham, and I are going to listen to Sasha Baron Cohen on Sway.

That's my day. He was in with Trump all weekend.
The calling up and threatening senators. That was nice.
Oh, God. That's my day.
What have they got on here? Let's get to the news.

I'm done with your vaccine frustration. All right.
Okay. Or dust station.
That's big stories. Okay.

We've got a lot of big stories. I just want to note one that we talked about last week at the UK, an Uber one.
They are classified as workers, not employees, which is a different designation.

And the Uber people call me right away. But nonetheless, it was not a victory for.
I said, how well that you make chicken shit into chicken salad.

But just so you know, that's a clarification for Matt. Okay.

So let's get into the big story.

As the United States gears up congressional hearings around big tech, let's check in on Facebook and the Australian news content battle.

Earlier this week, Facebook reached a deal with the Australian government to restore news content to the platform in its country.

Facebook removed news from its platform, obviously, as legislation will require Google and Facebook to pay. It's a complicated situation, essentially, news media companies for content.

How they do it is quite complicated.

Apparently, Facebook got some changes as part of the deal. And then we'll see how it plays out in Australia because it dictates how they deal with media in other parts of the world.

Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee, Antitrust Subcommittee, will kick off a first in a series of hearings to explore competition in the digital economy related.

So

so much is going on. So much is going on.
And then next month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hear from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, again,

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai,

hearing about misinformation on its online platform. It's probably related to the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

I don't know what to say.

This is going to go on forever. It feels like Groundhog Day with these people coming up to Congress, et cetera.

There's a lesson in the Facebook Australia debacle, and that is

crisis management. And there's only three things you have to remember in crisis management, and they typically get ignored when you have kind of groupthink.

And that is one, you have to acknowledge the problem.

And Facebook never acknowledged the problem.

Facebook basically said, no, there's nothing wrong here. And there is.

When media and newspapers are getting the oxygen sucked out of the room because Facebook is basically figured out a way to monetize it to the extent

and it has monopoly power. And the result is that journalism or the number of journalists has been cut in half in the last 30 years.
There is a problem. They didn't do that.

Two, the second thing is the top guy or gal has to take responsibility and be seen as addressing it. And then three, you have to overcorrect.
So let's look at Google. Google acknowledged the issue.

This is an issue. We recognize it.
Sunder Pashai was the one in the press releases. And they immediately got out ahead of it.

And you could argue maybe that wasn't an overcorrection, but they donated, or they pledged, I think, like a quarter of a billion dollars to it trying to address it. Boom.
They are out of jail and

they step away the line of fire. What does Facebook do? They don't acknowledge the problem.
They have Campbell Brown, who is basically, in my opinion, was a legitimate, likable journalist.

And they said, okay,

we fucked up here. There is no way to back out of this.
There's no way to exit gracefully. So we're going to let you put out the press release, right?

They basically threw her

on the funeral pyre or whatever. They threw her to the dogs here.

And did you see the statement she put out? This reflects

our continued support of journalism in Australia as we support journalism around the world.

I'm like, oh my God, that must have been about 200 consultants gangbanging a sentence and leaving that thing just so,

so tired. And so, I mean, it was just, that was the most ridiculous statement.
And they're like, Campbell, sorry, we're paying you a shit ton of money.

And part of that is we're going to ruin your reputation and your credibility globally.

And that's what Mark Zuckerberg is the Donald Trump of the digital reputation. No one gets out of here alive.

Cheryl Sandberg is an incredibly impressive, competent, charismatic woman. She's not going to get out of this with her reputation intact.

My sense is she keeps waiting, hoping for some silence, and it just doesn't come. It's not coming.
So they have absolutely botched this.

And there's a lesson here. Three things in crisis management.
Acknowledge the issue. Top guy or gal seen as the person addressing it and overcorrect.
Facebook, over three.

Yeah. I think it's an interesting thing.
I think it'll be interesting to see how it goes around the world. As you know, I thought the bill from Australia was a bit,

it wasn't the best. It's bad legislation.
Bad legislation.

But this idea of what's going to happen in Canada and other places, I'm hoping to talk to the Canadian person who's dealing with this, the minister.

But it will be replicated in other parts of the world because people are beginning to understand.

What's going to be interesting is how long these hearings are going to go on before there's actual action. You know, they're just going to examine everything.

as if we don't already know what happened essentially. And it's pretty disappointing that there isn't like that major legislation.
But they're

not just with the vaccines, but with everything and with approving people for the Biden cabinet, the getting going on this thing, and of course the stimulus bill, everything else that has to go in front of it.

I think that this is all to the benefit of these tech companies, as we've talked about. That they will,

there's going to be Robin Hood hearings. It's a hearings, hearings, hearings thing I'm getting a little exhausted by.
I just want action at this point, but I'm in an action kind of mood this morning.

But I think that's going to happen. I think Stacey Abrams is probably the most seminal force in big tech right now.

Why? Because she got to, she flipped the Senate. Yes.
Okay. She flipped the Senate.
And now all the committees

overseeing legislation

against big tech are now run by Democrats. Yeah.
Stacey Abrams is the most significant thing to happen regarding the regulation of big tech in the last year.

I guess I shouldn't tell you, I'll ask her when I talk to her tomorrow.

Literally, I expose my feelings to you, and you know what you do? You jab. You jab.

Look how happy you are. Thank you.

No, I'm not happy. I'm not in a good mood.

You're a little happy. I'm a little happy.
I'm excited.

John Ross Sorkin mentioned me. He mentioned in front of Bill Gates.
He mentioned me. He mentioned you.
You're getting a great day.

Great day. Talk about grasping for emotional straws.
I'm sorry. That's a good point.
I'm going to bring that up with her. That's an excellent point.
I hadn't thought of that. Thank you for that

thought.

I'll say, Scott galloway how about that i'll say your name to her and she'll hear it in her ears how's that you'd think at my age i'd be more secure you'd think and you'd be you'd be wrong

you'd be wrong you would be wrong i'll tell you one person i'm talking to i just just so you know and this has nothing to do with tech is the head of space force i'm very excited to be talking to him Such an awesome name.

Space Force.

I kind of want to join Space Force. Anyway, getting back to getting off this planet, getting off this planet so that we have better lives in Mars.

I think it'll be interesting to see what happens. It just, this is going to go on until there's significant legislation.

And, you know, one of the things, the one things will be around Robinhood and the SEC and the reporting and what happened there. And what have we learned? And what can we change?

And the ones here, I don't know. I don't know where it's going to lead.

You know,

I just don't know. And it's interesting, Apple and Amazon are not in these meetings.

Obviously, not for misinformation. Neither of them are culpable in this

regard.

But they may be back for antitrust hearings at some point. So we'll see where it all goes as we're going forward.
But it definitely,

I think this slow roll is working rather well for these people and sort of walking out of the room like they did in Australia.

And we'll see how, I think they're going to see more and more obstreperous legislators going forward. Obstreperous.
Did you use that word with Sasha? Did you use that word with Sasha?

By the way, the big story this morning, and you're usually really good at framing this stuff, and I just react and get emotional, is GameStop up 200 50% in the last 24 hours.

And there's going to be hearings about Robin Hood hearings next week. Last week, excuse me.
There was last week.

And then Vlad Tenoff went on Dave Portnoy's show, which was probably a better interview than a lot of them. He refuses to be interviewed by me, by the way.

Yeah, that was interesting. You think Diamond Hands, Dave Portnoy, claims that stocks always go up.
I guess. I don't know.
And has a background in gambling.

Everyone gets interviewed, Vlad, but actual reporters, huh? Yeah, he has a background in gambling. His company was a part of it.

I'm not aware of

Dave Portnoy's thing, his act and stuff. But

what's interesting is that the stock is going up. What do you think of that? They're just doing it again.
They're doing another

fast run. This is just fast.
AMC, too, right? So there's

a couple of things. One,

I have a lot of thoughts on this. You're going to have to give me some running room.
Please don't. Please don't trigger me.
Do not use the word Sasha Baron Cohen. I'm going to take a moment.

We're going to go on a quick break and we get back. Instead of talking about net neutrality, we're going to talk about this.

I tell you what's important to me, and you're like, that's not going to give you running.

You're going to let me run.

What is my great Dane? Great Dane. I'm letting you run.
And I, even though Stephanie Rule called you a poodle, you are indeed a great Dane. Sure.
Whatever you say. So we're going to take a picture.

She said I wasn't sexy. That hurts.
She did not say that. She said you were more like a poodle, which I thought was so bringing sexy back.
All right, listen. I'm sobering sexy back.

Scott, we're going to have a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about GameStop instead of net neutrality in California.
We'll mention that also and a listener mail question.

So let's go to break and then when we get back, we'll talk about it. Okay.

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All right, Scott, we're back. Time to run on GameStop.
Go ahead.

Well, so this is, if you could, you would argue this is an honest pump, meaning that, so for example, Dan Loeb took a big position in Yahoo,

got Marissa Mayer to come in. Everyone was very excited, posters that said, keep hope alive, put people on the board, talked about all the potential of Yahoo, and then put people on the board.

And I'm fairly certain the people on the board observed Marissa Mayer and said she is a terrible executive. Yeah.
And then proceed to watch her take EBITDA down 50%, revenues down 20%.

And Dan, just as they were starting to take down the Keep Hope Alive posters with a picture of Marissa Mair, got the hell out of Dodge and sold all his money after, sold all his shares after what I would call an honest pump.

That's what an activist does. Yeah, he did.
And these individuals. He got the previous CEO fired, too.
He was fired. That's right.
On what I would argue was, to be blunt,

very fair.

You thought that was very fair?

That guy, with the thing, I wrote a lot of those stories. Yeah.
I think that guy lied about his.

He said he had a minor in computer science. That's where he fired someone.
He's more complicated than that. Okay, fair enough.
There was no such course at his college. It was, he sort of.

lathered over his resume. Anyways, anyways, another talk show.

Another talk show. So the honest pump of GameStop is a group of individuals, and it's going to be very interesting once forensic analysis is done here.

I have a hunch, or I speculate, it's a group of people who aren't as retail or aren't as unsophisticated as we think, who figured out algorithms for planting, getting a position, and then catalyzing a lot of chatter and then pumping an honest pump of their position.

Or it might be, and also getting people who believe it's part of a movement, maybe want to make a little bit of money, maybe enjoy it, maybe want to learn about stocks just fine.

But here's the thing: it goes to a bigger issue. Okay.
And that is volatility,

it's sort of intergenerational warfare. And that is volatility plays to young people and is damaging to the incumbent wealthy.
And that is the following. When 2009,

the reason I'm somewhat economically secure now is because of the volatility coming out of the economic crisis where Apple and Amazon were allowed to fall to pretty serious lows.

I was able to buy Apple at basically $11 a share. I was able to buy Amazon at $160.
They're both up 10 to 20x.

When you try and reduce volatility by flooding the market with quantitative easing, keeping interest rates low, or you find this type of volatility threatening and you want hearings, what you're basically saying is the incumbents want to hold on to their wealth because volatility creates risk that current asset holders don't want.

And if you're a younger generation that has a little bit of money and quite frankly, not as much to lose because your generation now controls 9% of the wealth versus 19%, and you see that the game isn't rigged, but it's tilted, volatility isn't as scary to you.

Yeah. It's not.
So they embrace volatility. Younger people have that profile.
Well, no, but volatility and change.

You know what would happen if we let small business be more volatile and we let restaurants go out of business?

We would shed skin, and a lot of 50-year-old restaurant owners would lose their restaurants, which would make room an opportunity for 30-year-old, 30-year-olds to come out.

Yeah, but unless you let the winds of creative destruction gale, unless you let volatility

run wild,

all you're doing is protecting the existing asset holders. And younger people are like, we want some chaos.
We want some volatility.

We would like to see Brooklyn real estate prices maybe get cut in half. We would like the opportunity to have real volatility in the market.

Because if it's just we want the markets to go up 4% to 6% a year, that just plays to the existing asset holders. So I think

this reflects, again, greater income inequality and a transfer of wealth from the young to the poor. And as a result, the young are ready to, you know, they are ready to rock.
They want volatility.

So did you see how they, Jim Kramer went kind of crazy on this issue?

Let's see. What did he say? Oh, he just wasn't liking it.
He didn't like it. He wanted the SEC to get in here and what's going on.
And,

you know, it's just interesting the different reactions. They're going to come in.

This is getting

a little bit strange. The thing that worries me most about all of this is not Reddit.
The thing that worries me most is Elon Musk.

And that is the one truism throughout history, I think, that is hard to deny is that power corrupts.

And I'm not saying he's a corrupt person, but when one person can start moving, basically Bitcoin is moving towards a default currency.

And when one person can take a default currency up or down 20, 30% with one word tweets, that doesn't lead to good places.

The reason why America, to a certain extent, our greatness in America is all the checks and balances. And quite frankly, no one person has ever been able to corner the market.

They get really hurt when they try and corner the market, whether it's the Hunt Brothers and Silver, whether it's Carnegie and Steel or what have you.

And it strikes me that whether it's seven companies controlling 51% of the S ⁇ P by market capitalization or an individual who has this kind of sway over the markets, That's right. That's true.

It's sort of this cult.

It's the cult of personality situation where you have, it's, you know it's an autocracy does that a lot those are the sort of hallmarks of autocracy but you're right there's this sort of there's been a lot of stories about this that i read recently about this cult of how personalities can move things here's what uh jim kramer said obviously jim kramer is well-known stock pundit um he said uh uh we We need fair, deep markets in an evening tweet.

We want investing, good investing. We want to trust prices.
What happened at the end of the day was a mockery of what was supposed to happen. Where is government?

This is what he said, which I think a lot of people got, you know, slandem on. And then he wrote 45 minutes ago, I have been a polarizing figure all my life.

So it isn't like I just turned into Jefferson or something. I do my homework.
I try to outwork everyone. I say what I believe.
And for that, I am hated by many, but I say, game on.

There you go from Jim Kramer. Well, here's the thing, though.
Where is Jim calling for legislation when he makes a comment about the fundamentals and the stock? Well, he himself has been,

you know, he runs stocks up and down too. Yeah.
Well, that's not

quite the same way. This is really.
The bottom line is the incumbent powers are just angry that we don't understand the mechanisms and the mediums that these individuals are using to pump.

What I think we're going to find out, though, is that the people who are doing the pumping and organizing it are more sophisticated and more the establishment than William Wallace and we like to believe.

Interesting.

I think we're going to find out it was the King's Guard, not William Wallace, who was pumping this shit and making money. And they're leveraging a movement, they're leveraging this notion.

Uh, people think they're sticking it to the man, yeah. But the note to say that to all of a sudden move in and say, All right, if there's systemic risk here and volatility, then fine.

Let's look at the systemic risk and volatility that hedge funds who are able to short a stock to 140% of its outstanding stock, outstanding shares, which I still don't understand how that happens.

Yeah, they halted the stock. But again, this is if the stock's been halted, GameStop's been halted.
This is again, and I would argue my thing, my

word of caution all along is day trading is just a great way to lose money. And so, if you're doing it for DOPA, fine.
If you're doing it to learn, fine. But don't kid yourself.

When you sit down to day trade, you're sitting down at a poker table that doesn't take advantage of time, and two or three people at that table have supercomputers, PhDs, someone whispering in their ear, and they have enough chips to ride out any bad hand.

So, just be sure that, just be clear, you are at a poker table with the best players in the world.

And typically, if you looked at GameStop, I'm sorry, if you looked at Robinhood, they have this thing where the most popular stocks.

If you just invested, if you kept buying the most popular stocks according to GameStop, there's been analysis that said you would have lost 80 to 95 percent of your capital. Yeah.

And here's the problem: when we have these platforms that are just, quite frankly, trying to get you to create more activity because they sell your clicks, they sell your information, they sell your order flow,

then that agency or that company is no longer a fiduciary. They no longer longer have your best interests at heart.
They just want you to get to do more and more and more. Yeah.

And that's what Robinhood is the new, in my opinion. Robinhood is the new Facebook.
It is the new menace.

Well, one of the things, he was, you know, Vlad Denev was all over the place in a lot of places talking about it because he was getting ahead of sort of all the all the insults that he endured and after when they closed trading

half of the trading down

where you could

or you couldn't buy Robinhood stock on their platform. Anyway, it's an interesting situation.
And I think the power dynamic is changing.

I just, it's hard to know because you can also almost be on two sides of this thing. Like, well, you do need calm markets at the same time.
Too bad. Like, this is what it is.

So it's certainly going to, it's, we'll see where it ends. We will see where it ends.
But I think you're right. Did you run far enough? Do you have enough running room there? Oh, thank you.

Thank you for that. I feel loved.
Okay, good. I feel loved.
Okay.

I feel good. All right.
You still have to listen to Sasha Baron Cohen. Anyway, moving on.
Let's take a listener mail question. You've got, you've got.
I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You, you've got mail.

Hey, this is Colin calling from Austin, Texas, where we have had six consecutive days with uninterrupted power.

Do you think that companies that have relocated here in the last decade are going to be paying very close attention to what Texas leadership does to prevent another energy failure?

If there's more Republican douchebaggery like blaming wind turbines, won't companies consider the potential damage to future recruiting?

And won't other tech hubs like Miami leverage this disaster to lure businesses to their cities? Oh, and this question is 54.7% for Scott and 45.3% for Cara. Thank you.

So primarily for Scott. Primarily.
Yeah, primarily. I think they were just throwing you a bone.
That's called throwing you a Texas bone. I think that's interesting.

I like Republican douchebaggery, but go right ahead, Scott. Do your 54.7%.

Look, there's no doubt about it. Texas gets a black eye here.
And states like Florida and Texas that don't have, I'm of two minds about this.

I used to think, okay, anyone that doesn't have a state income tax has really weak infrastructure and really, really weak schools. And Florida, quite frankly, has weak public schools.

Again, another transfer of wealth from

the rich. And hurricanes.
Everybody has something. Texas comes out of this with a black eye.
There's no doubt about it.

In terms of his actual question of companies moving down, whether it'll force them to think twice, absolutely not. And you know why? These are the people that are immune from it.

These are the people that can take off for Cancun. These are the people that can afford their own generators.
So the reason people, the great migration in the U.S.

is driven by two things, sunshine and low taxes. And what you have is any individual that is sitting on an unrealized gain of greater than $10 million.

And there's thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people with SPACs and the market's accelerating thinks, you know what?

If I have a $130 million, a $13 million unrealized gain because the stock market's gone crazy or I was a shareholder in a SPAC, why don't I move to Miami?

And with my tax savings, I'll buy some big fat fucking house in Coral Gables or I'll move to Austin and buy some amazing home in the same neighborhood where Michael Dell lives on a golf course. So

this, again, again, this stuff really impacts the lower income and middle income people. The rich are just fine.
They're not boiling water in Austin.

Well, it's interesting because I think one of the things that is true, though, is that I've had a lot of people who move there, they're like, oh, this sucks. They called me.

You know, like, I was bragging about it. No, I'm not bragging about it.

I do think Texas has got to figure out a way to get, you know, uninterrupted power is something, you know, they also have other weather issues, including all kinds of weather issues, as does California, as does Florida, as does everybody.

But I think it shows like

Wall Street Journal had a great story about how much more expensive it's been power in

have you seen what's happened with these full-notches?

Not just that, over the years since they deregulated, people in Texas are paying more for power. The Wall Street Journal had a really interesting story.

So they think they're being like, oh, we're Texas. We don't get regulated.
And they just get screwed. The consumer just gets screwed.
That's what happens through deregulation.

And that these companies didn't upgrade, that they charge more. It's just sort of like, what a deal that you weren't on the national grid or you weren't regulated in any way.

I do think it's something that

it's not great. It's also not great.
This is the second year that South by Southwest won't happen, won't be happening live as well. How much do we miss that? I miss South by Southwest.

We're going to be happy in next year when we go and have a little barbecue together

and do some lovely things there. But

it's definitely a hit.

That, for example, was a really good event for tech, like tech-related stuff. And you and I both went.

So I think it's, you know, Elon's moved there, which is interesting. Speaking of Elon, I don't think it's going going to be an enormous hit.
I just think it's

the Republicans have to think about. Why do you think Elon Musk has moved there?

SpaceX, probably. No.
It has nothing to do with companies. Taxes.
Taxes. Okay.
Okay. Elon Musk has added to his personal net worth the GDP of Hungary.

He's gone from $10 billion to $160 billion in 10 months. Oh, it's great to see that rich people are really feeling the pain of the pandemic.

Anyways, $150 billion in an unrealized gain because he hasn't sold the stock yet. In California, 13% of $150 billion

is $19.5 billion.

So by moving to Texas, and when I say move to Texas, he buys a home there, he gets a vet there, he gets a dentist there, he registers to vote, and he makes sure he's not in California more than 183 days a year, which, by the way, is easy for him because he's roaming the earth in his Gulfstream 650 or he's in space or whatever he's doing.

He gets $195.5 billion. He can go out and say buy William, Sonoma, and Tiffany.

I mean, it's just the amount the it's very simple find everyone with an enormous unrealized gain and guess what they're they're they got a hankering for texas and florida hankering where do you live scott florida but i moved here when i was poor i moved here in 2010.

i've been paying heavy taxes for many years in both California, D.C. My kids' grandparents are here.
That's why we moved there. I see.
It's nice. Yeah, but I agree with that.

And my speech-to-late son couldn't get into a Manhattan school. Republicans got to clean it up.
You can't have this,

you've got to clean up that energy market. It's just not.
They have their own grid. It's so strange.
There's three grids. There's the Western, the Eastern, and the Texas.

The whole thing's strange. All the air got bored.
They resigned. A whole bunch of them resigned.
This is the board that runs this stuff. It's just, read the Wall Street Journal.

I recommend people reading this Wall Street Job piece because it's sort of like, look, looky here.

This did not work out so well, the deregulation.

In any case, things are settling. The weather is turning.
But at the same time,

thank you, Colin from from Texas.

But just his question, it's not going to slow. It's not going to slow the migration of companies.
All right. I still don't see the Googles and the Facebooks moving yet.

That's where I will be like, aha. Oracle moves, yet, whatever.

I think that when you see the very big companies moving from California, that's when I'll pay attention. I don't know.

If I was going to predict that one would move, the one I would predict, it'll really rattle everybody. What? Tell me.
Salesforce. Oh.
Mark Benioff spends a lot of time in Hawaii.

Oh, he does that already. Yeah, but so why not get, anyways? I think Salesforce, and

they've embraced remote. I don't know.

That's what they've done. That's what they've done.
He's a very, I don't know, a forward thinker. Also, quite frankly, I think the governor has his head in the sand around this.

I think both, I really don't think he's outlined. I think it's a lot of political challenges.
Yeah, but basically what they say is they break into someone.

They're asked a legitimate question around how are you going to stem the flow? Your state has basically become expensive, but bad in the eyes of corporations. How are you going to stem the exodus?

And quite frankly, Governor Newsom's answers have been a bunch of California blah, blah, rah-rah, rather than saying, acknowledging the issue and saying this is our three-step program to trying to fix this.

I don't think he's done a great deal of leadership. I'm not going to defend some of the things he's done, but I have to say, he's stymie by the proposition system.
There's a lot that stymies going on.

And they have been doing well for a decade, like under Jerry Brown. Like it's been,

everybody gets hits their hits their wall,

every state. And so will Texas, by the way, and so will Florida.
And probably much sooner, both of those. I think California, the California sort of miracle went on for a very long time.

I'm telling you, Kara, it is staggering, staggering. I'm going to an event that the mayor is hosting in Miami tonight, Mayor Flores.

It is staggering the number of people and companies that feels like overnight have decamped to Florida. It is just

well, you give us a report on Monday how that party went. Sounds good.
Just don't get it. We're going to see him speak.
We're going to see him speak. I get arrested.
I've never been arrested.

I'm teasing you. Florida is just.

We're going to have a little event down there, I think. We're going to have to.
You talk to him about that.

See what we can do and kind of the interesting people we could and focus on the future.

Dreamy Mayor Florida.

McDreamy Mayor Florida. Dreamy Republican.
Let's see. See if he's all Trumpy.
Will you check that out? I don't think he is.

I don't think he is. He strikes me as practical and friendly and smart.
And I like him a lot. Speaking of Trumpy, Trumpy's going to be in Orlando, like trumping it up.

And so... Let's not even talk about it.
All right, we'll walk. All right, Scott, one more quick break.
We'll be back for predictions. I'm going to let you really predict when we get back.

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Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odo comes in.

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That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more.

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It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

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Okay, Scott, prediction time. Every year you make predictions, you make them all the time.
And three have come true in 2021 so far. Bitcoin, which was trading at $18, now surpassed $50 or maybe $60.

And there's more companies just announced that they're going to be buying it.

Sonos was at $19 a share and you predicted it would hit $40 and it happened. And also you said Twitter, which was at $40, is now at $60 a share when you said they'd be moving moving to subscription.

So take a little bow and tell me how you feel about each of these things or more stuff. Well, so actually Twitter is at, I think it's at 70.
It's at 79. While you talk.
No, it's at 79.

I predicted it would go to 70. I was wrong.
It's at 79. On a move to subscription.
That's a novel idea.

Look, so

Bitcoin has tremendous heat around it.

We've talked about it. It's $79 on this.
Yeah, $79. It's

up 9%,

10% today. Whoa, 78, $78.78.
Wow. Yeah.
Yeah. And why? Because they said they're finally getting serious about subscription.

Anyway, and by the way, if they make an announcement, they should so buy CNN. They should so buy CNN.
I love that idea. So many people have asked me about that, your prediction.

Oh, it makes such perfect sense. ATT needs to reduce their debt.

If you look at what happened to Spotify and Netflix when they announced original content, if Jack Dorsey today announced they were acquiring CNN, the stock that day, that day, the acquisition would be paid for in a stock, the stock increase.

he could buy it for free right now anyway um so my prediction uh uh i i love this notion of who would benefit most the most accretive actions in history in terms of shareholder value have been one verticalization when you go right into content or you're a retailer that reverse engineers back into the product itself and you go all vertical and also move to a subscription model And so I'm looking for great brands that could pull an Apple and go vertical into distribution like they did with stores or an Amazon.

And I think that my prediction is that one of the strongest brands in the world, actually, I think it's the strongest brand in the services economy globally and has underperformed all of its peers the last five years and would see an increase of 50 to 70 percent if they got serious about subscription or going vertical, it's Goldman Sachs.

I think Goldman Sachs is going to attract an activist in the next nine months or and by the way, full disclosure, I work with with Goldman. I love them.
I think they're great at what they do.

I think there's a cartoon of them being weird, greedy, caricature Monty Burns people.

They have the core asset of any company in an information age. And that is they are seen and perceived in the marketplace by young people as an accelerant.

The number of incredibly talented young people, mostly women now, because seven out of 10 high school valedictorians are women and more women are graduating from college.

The number of really impressive young people that continue to start their careers at Goldman is staggering.

This is an incredible firm with incredible assets that has a head-up their ass strategy that focuses on transactional deal-based revenues. They go vertical.

They buy a trading platform and they start charging. Like what? What trading platform? I don't know.
The one I'm an investor in, public.

Starts their hat wide. Don't take Robinhood public.
What the fuck are you thinking? Go into trading. Do you know how many young people would pay $25 a month for advice, education, and

investing advice and trading opportunities with Goldman Sachs?

Call it GS Plus. Do a Disney Plus move.

If their revenue goes to 10% recurring revenue, and by the way, 400 of the 500 Fortune 500 would pay Goldman between $1 and $3 million a year just for ongoing advice.

Instead, what happens in a transactional business is when I'm on the board of Urban Outfitters, Goldman shows up and just tells us, says anything to get us to buy a company so they can get a fee.

When I'm on the board of Gateway, Gateway, Goldman shows up and says anything that leads us to selling Gateway so they can get their fee. They need to get on the side of subscription revenue.

They need to go vertical. The thing goes up 50 to 80 percent.
Okay. Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs moves to subscription.
What would be in their way for doing such a thing?

Traditional, traditional poor strategic thinking and muscle memory around our model works.

We're paying our, we're, you know, we're paying, we've always, we've always swung the golf club this way. We all make good money.
Meanwhile, their shares have underperformed.

Morgan Stanley's overperformed. Do you realize Goldman Sachs is now worth less?

It's worth less than Wells Fargo. It's worth less than PayPal.
It's worth less than Square. It's worth less than Airbnb.
It has underperformed all its peers on a five-year level.

And it has the best brand in the world. It is.
The most talented. It's most beautiful offices.
The most talented young people. in the world.
So under boom. Underperformed.
That's interesting.

A failure of leadership around strategic thinking, a failure of the world. But you went after DJ? DJ, whatever his name is.
DJ Sol.

You know, I think if when you're talking about strategic thinking, you have to go back a generation because DJ Sol has actually been quite aggressive in moving into consumer businesses with Marcus and also with the Apple card.

I think he will be seen as somebody who said, I'm the one that took us to consumer, which is where they need to head. They need to go vertical into consumer.

So I think he deserves some credit, actually. Okay.
But this has been the definition of baby boomer, encephalitic. I get paid a shit ton of money.
I'm going to stick here.

I'll compliment him, but baby boomer encephalitic. Go ahead.
Go ahead. Activists going into Goldman.
Oh.

And encourages them. And by the way, the best way to do it.
Which activist? The best way to predict.

Okay. Hold on.
I can't go there. Best way to predict the future is to make it happen.

The best way to predict the future is to make it happen. Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs, the most undervalued brand in the world right now. Well, you just declared war on them.
You understand?

Well, I declare war on them. I'm going to be a partner with them in this.
I love Goldman. They manage my money.
I love Goldman. I just think they're undervalued.

I just think they're massively undervalued.

I think muscle memory is a very good thing. That's my takeaway from it: people doing,

I think about that a lot in media. This is the way we do it.
Wow, too bad. You know, like now this is the way we do it.

I think you talked, this is your theme today because you talked about it in GameStop. You talked about it here.
Muscle memory is what you're talking about, getting rid of muscle memory. Correct?

That's right. Stretching out, stretching those limbs.
That's right.

The yoga nator. It's very great Dane of you, I have to say.
You like that? You like that? I can't believe you're getting a great Dane. How many dogs do you have? Like 80?

No, we have Zoe, our Vishla, who is 14 and a half and is doing well, really well.

And we have our Puerto Rican Rescue Dachshund. We think it's a dachshund, Felix, gangster.
Okay, so you're readying a replacement for your older dog? That's what he's doing. 100%.

She's going soon.

She's going.

I'm ready a replacement for you.

Which comes. Oh my God, that's so cruel to have this Dane just sitting there.
Are you planning to adopt to rescue Sasha Baron Cohen? Are you already planning this? Yes.

Yeah, she's 14 and a half. She's so good.
So let me ask you one last question.

Who would really make you upset if I got an interview with? Just curious. We're still here.
We're still here. Who would it be? No, I'm done.
I'm done. I'm I'm done with it.
I'm delaying this game.

Who would just be like, I cannot believe you talked to that person? We've played it out. Just asking for a friend.

If you could get it.

If I say this person, you have to, and you get this person, you have to put them on our show.

Okay.

Okay. You know who I would love who is, I think, an incredible role model? Yeah.
Okay. Tell me.
I would love to have McKenzie Phillips. Mackenzie.
I'm sorry, Mackenzie Phillips. Who the fuck's that?

Oh, that's from Three's Company. Oh, wait, no, that's from that old show.
Remember her? Three's company.

From One Day at a Time. One Day at a Time.

That's who I want on this show. God, I'm literally.
Hello. I know.
Remember when we first dotted Grandpa with Dementia? Mackenzie Scott. Mackenzie Scott.
McKenzie's baby. I get Mackenzie Scott.

I'm doing a live interview in front of a thousand people. She's my hero.
I'm not going to do the whole big, like, look-at-me-giving thing. I'm just going to push money out to people who need it.
Yeah.

I like her. I think she ought to be.
I cannot make that promise if I get Mackenzie Scott. I hung out with with her many years ago.
She's lovely. Of course she did.
She is lovely.

I haven't spoken to her in a million years.

You literally said that just so you could get that person on sway, right? I don't know even how to reach her.

Honestly, Mackenzie, if you're listening, hi. It's Kara again.
We're huge. I'm excited for the time we spent together.
She was my 2020 person of the year. Okay.
All right. Well, good.

She's really great. What a thrill for her.
Let me just say

you picked a nice person, like who I always liked, who I always thought was a lovely, lovely, smart, erudite person, and now is doing really interesting

things. Doing all this bullshit.
You know what I can't stand? This whole movement towards space. What? Space? Oh, I can't see anything.
Here's an idea. Here's an idea.
I love that space. I love space.

The most powerful people in the world shouldn't be talking about moving to Mars. They should be talking about making their home a better place.

Well, you know, they think this is how to do it. I wrote about it because those pictures from Jupiter and Mars were so beautiful.
Did you see those? Yeah, I love the pictures.

Literally, you could take like the Zoom down to a rock. I was like, I'm looking at a rock 130 million miles away.

Don't you think it's kind of abdicating responsibility for making your home a better place? I don't know.

I mean, granted, sometimes, sometimes after arguments with my kids, I just want to get in my car and drive, but I decide to actually invest in the house versus.

I'm different than you. I think we should explore space.
But I think it shouldn't be by two billionaires, like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk fighting it out.

I think we should all invest in exploring the cosmos, not just for to bet to get our planet, have to a multi-planetary species, but that we that there's things out there that would be great to explore.

I know we've made a mess here, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't go there.

I think we should re-explore steel towns and our manufacturing base and the Brad States and try and reinvigorate them instead of like all this

sword fighting with their dicks. I'm going to Mars.
No, I'm going to Mars. I think there's a lot of issues, but everything's not perfect at home and you still travel.
I don't know.

I just think it's part of the same thing. I think space travel,

one of my other predictions is I think space travel and all the excitement around space, I think it's a technology that's going to end in tears for investors. I think it's expensive and dangerous.

It is expensive.

The Mars mission was $2.7 billion. I don't think it's meant to make money necessarily, but we know if they get married.
A lot of people trying.

They are. You know, actually,

Musk is going to put up

an all-civilian crew by the end of 2021. Bezos's Blue Origin, which he'll be focusing a lot more on, people think, is going to be putting humans in space for orbits at least soon.
So, yeah, we'll see.

We'll see. We'll see.
I'm on the other side of that trade than you, but I don't know about the money part. Yeah.

Okay. That's the show.
That is the show. Oh, I feel better.
I feel better. That is the show.
I'm still on this planet without a vaccine, like a lot of people, like way too many people.

But anyway, I will get one. I will keep trying.
And JJ is coming out with a vaccine. They are.
JNJ is coming out with one that doesn't need to be refrigerated quite as much. One dose.
One dose.

It shows a lot of efficacy, which is going to to be great. There's all kinds of good news in lots of spaces.

Israel, there's one last thing I'll say, which I didn't mention at the top, was, you know, Israel's

are showing huge rates of uptake, even though there's still all kinds of problems there.

And then, as you said, the JNJ one dose has a 72% efficient at protecting against COVID-19. That's pretty great.
It's pretty great.

All right. See, we can do things.
We can do things in this country and also

and interview famous people like Mackenzie Scott. All right, Emma.
I'm done. I'm done.
Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sonana. Serie Indra Todd Engineer this episode.

Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burroughs. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple podcast or wherever you listen.
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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.

Who gets mentioned by the most lovable Canadian in history, Andrew Rossorkin? Good job, take it when you get it. Good job.
Take it when you get it. All I gotta say, Andrew, is woof.

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