Australia vs. Facebook and the GameStop hearings

Support for the show comes from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Sacks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

Follow us here, and you can invest in some new arrivals that you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed product blazer and Gucci loafers, which can take you from work to the weekend.

Shopping from Saks feels totally customized, from the in-store stylist to a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you things that fit your style and taste.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in, or when that Brunello Cacchinelli sweater you've been eyeing is back in stock.

So, if you're like me and you need shopping to be personalized and easy, head to Saks Fifth Avenue for the Best Fall Arrivals and Style inspiration.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?

With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one.

You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.

Download today.

Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Roaring Kitty.

No, you're not.

Stephanie Rule is Roaring Kitty.

I just called her.

That's the Roaring Kitty.

I was on her show, and she was like, she's the roaring lioness.

Yeah, she's like, I don't know if I'm ever going to talk about this guy except as Roaring Kitty.

I said, well, that's how we talk about you when you're not looking.

She's the panther to your jungle cat.

She's a panther.

I would give her panther.

What kind of panther?

Since I'm jungle cat, what is she?

What panther?

I don't know.

Tree panther?

Tree panther?

I don't know.

Savannah panther.

I don't know where panthers hang out.

Yeah, I don't know.

We need to do some research.

Rebecca, get on it.

We need to do some serious research.

The only panther I know is a black panther.

I thought, oh, I'm going to trigger someone if I say that.

No, no, no.

We'll have to conclude.

She's a panther, though.

She could be a jaguar.

Jaguar.

Jaguar.

You know, Jaguar is one of the few species that's ever been proven that when it's being hunted, it will run ahead and then it'll turn around and come back and hunt the hunter.

Oh, hunt the hunter.

Jaguar.

I'm going with the person with the gun, if that's the case.

Anyway, let's get on to Banta.

You're betting on the gun.

You're going on the gun.

I'm betting on the gun.

I'm always betting on the gun.

Okay, especially in hunting situations.

All right, Public, an app competitor to Robin Hood, the thing that Stephanie and I were talking about with the GameStop hearings going on in Capitol Hill today, which we'll talk about in a minute.

But you are an investor in this company, Public.

I'm thinking of having their CEOs on my Persuasion show because I want to talk about this.

They hit 1 million users.

Obviously, everyone's signing up.

This has happened before.

It doesn't mean that it's going to last or whatever.

But what do you think having 1 million?

And remember, you're disclosed that you're invested in the company.

Yeah.

So I just want to provide some context here.

I think capitalism, one of the wonderful things about capitalism is that you can invest.

The basis of capitalism is that making money does not necessarily mean you have to support menace companies.

That good companies, you can do well while doing good.

And then we had a show about six months ago, I think, and we talked about Alex Kern's suicide and the alerts

or the Aaron alerts saying he was down 700 grand, his attempts to get customer service on the line, and in the morning him writing a note saying that he didn't want to indebt his family and killing himself.

Right.

And I said, this company was a menace.

And I heard from the CEO of this trading app no one had heard of and said,

we are 40% women.

We don't let people trade on margin.

We're about education.

We don't do options.

And I said, I like this.

This company's from Europe, correct?

The CEO?

Yeah,

they're actually, they have a headquarters here, but they're out of Northern Europe.

Anyway, so I said, I like the cut of your jib.

I like what you're doing.

It's about investing in.

You can literally say, I like the cut of your jib to people.

Yes, just to cement my status as an old white man.

You like a country cut.

I like the cut of your jib, young man.

What do you like to do?

Come to my nuclear.

Yeah, well, old school.

Now work for me at my nuclear power plant.

Excellent.

Excellent.

So, anyways.

Anyways, I said, I want to.

No one knows what a jib is these days.

That's all I have to say, except for like the candidates.

I hate sailing.

I hate sailing.

Well, I'd really like to hang out with that guy that sails a lot.

Said, no one ever.

No one ever.

Anyways, my brother has a boat.

Back to me in my capitalism.

So I said, I want to invest.

And I invested at a valuation, and people don't like to talk about numbers, which is how the rich suppress the poor.

Okay.

Or one of them, anyways, I should say.

And I invested at a valuation of $100 million.

No one had heard of this thing.

And then I started noticing really cool people were going on this thing.

Cindy Gallup, Paul Rabel, you have gone on public.

I haven't done a thing on it, but go ahead.

I just did it for you.

I don't think I.

I will.

I will.

I can't.

You know what?

You know what?

I'm glad to see you're starting to invest in our relationship.

I just wanted to see how it worked.

Anyways, very lovely.

It's not gamified like Robin Hood is.

Yeah, and it's education.

I did a thing going over

all my stock holdings and

1,800 people signed up.

I just like it.

And most recently, they recognize that when you do trading for free, when you do offer something for free, ultimately it leads to bad places.

And in contrast to Robinhood, which sells order flow, which

when you're when the heroin is order flow, then really.

Well, everybody does order flow.

Let's be fair.

Schwab does it.

They all do this particular act.

Okay.

Public does not.

Yeah.

They said they're going to tipping.

They said if you tipping, if you make money off of order flow, then your motivation is to get people to.

Yeah, tipping's interesting.

Then your motivation is to get people to trade more.

And Robin Hood, if it had a true tagline, it would be the more you trade, the more you lose.

80 to 95% of day traders lose money.

Yeah, that's why I don't day trade.

That's why I get it.

That's right.

Because it's a dumb idea or it's a bad idea for most people unless you have PhDs and supercomputers.

And I'm not criticizing a movement.

I think investing is great.

Anyways, I just like these guys guys a lot.

I think they're trying to do that.

But here's the deal: they're really interesting.

They could be a little funner.

They're not fun at all compared to

the business.

You mean

confetti and graffiti convincing you that everyone around you is making more money?

Teasing.

None of it works on it.

So get this.

Get this.

Tiger stepped in.

So in the GameStop drama, a lot of people said, I like the approach and the deseitgeist and the gestalt of public.

They rocketed to a million users, and Tiger has stepped in and is funding, is investing, I think, 200 million at a pre-money of $1 million.

It's a good one to get into right now, especially with GameStop.

You wonder where it's going to go.

It could be a pioneer here.

Well, you know what should happen?

You know what should happen?

Goldman should buy it.

Sorry, not GameStop.

Goldman should buy it.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Like, we'll see where Robin Hood goes.

They certainly have a lot of fans, but they got a black eye from this, especially in how they, I don't necessarily know.

We'll see what these hearings say today.

We'll talk about them in a minute.

But let's get back to them in a second.

But Parlor also, which gave a voice to the far right, is back online this week.

They got a bunch of different vendors to Epic and others to help them out.

What's your take on that?

Do you think Parlor?

They missed the turn.

Unless they get Donald Trump to go on it, I guess.

I guess if they get Donald, and there were talks previously that have been reported, apparently, or allegedly.

And we'll see.

Let's see if they get people on it, like well-known people by offering whatever.

But they missed the turn.

They missed their, you know, the whole, the whole Capitol attack did not look well upon them.

And even though others.

Everyone's heard of them.

I mean, I hope you're right, but everyone has heard of Parlor.

I know, but they've gone to Signal.

They've gone to, like, I don't know.

We'll see.

We'll see who does it.

We'll see who jumps on.

Like, look, it could be Cancun Ted Cruz, you know, if you could just see them.

Ted Cruz.

Listen.

Finally.

Listen.

It was like a detective match.

Dividing us.

Did you know about this Cancun?

Maybe?

Yeah, he took off for Cancun.

Maybe, but nobody knew for the longest time.

Apparently, it's been confirmed now, but his office is on the back of the camera.

I'm just hoping he's vacationing.

My hope is that he's vacationing with Jimmy Hoffa.

That's my hope.

There were so many good memes on the Ted Cruz Encyclopedia Brown.

Did he go?

People were like circling his belt.

This is a belt he wore here.

This is like whether it was a fake Ted Cruz.

And it was like, it was so good last night before anyone confirmed it.

I believe it has been confirmed now, but I'm not even sure.

But it was so wonderful, like watching the internet go to work last night on the hair, on the mask, on the wife, on the like the kid, a can of cup of noodles, and whatever.

Anyway, it was really lots of fun last night.

And the jokes were like so good about Ted Cruz.

Let me reel you back in.

Parlor.

Parlor.

Well, he's in Parlor.

That's why I said he's on Parlor.

Maybe he could go off.

So you don't, you think they've missed.

He needs to leave Twitter at this point.

You think, well, I've clearly triggered you with Ted Cruz.

But so Parlor, you think they've missed the turn.

You don't think they come back?

I don't.

I don't.

I think he's, I think it's, I think it's difficult.

I think it's difficult, but you never know if they put some money.

They got a new CEO.

the Mercers, who were one of the big investors, have a lot of money in there.

Maybe they could make it happen.

I just think they missed the, if they had gotten Donald Trump in there after the Twitter, after he got thrown off a Twitter, it could have made a lot more.

They shouldn't have done the interview with me.

That's really where I put it.

Because I called the attention to what they were already having problems with with the big platforms.

We'll see.

We'll see.

All right, last thing.

New York Attorney General, Letitia James,

who is

being much of a badass, sued Amazon this week.

She's done a lot of suits with Trump's, all kinds of things, Google.

She argues that the company has not given protections for workers in New York City during the pandemic and then retaliated against employees who raised concerns.

This is an issue for them,

lots of people.

Last week, Amazon preemptively sued her in the federal court to stop her from bringing the charges.

So, you know, this is going to be, as I said yesterday to someone,

employee issues are going to be the big issue at Amazon going forward.

The marketplace is also important, like whether they control the marketplace in an untoward way but this these employee issues they're going to be the nexus of these employee issues I think yeah I think this actually so I'm a fan of AG James I think she's a gangster I think she's fearless I to be blunt and maybe you know more about this case than I do I think it's a little bit posing for the cameras a little bit.

Well, all those attorney generals do that.

Sure.

They all wake up in the morning and say, hello, hello, Mr.

or Madam Governor.

So, but this feeds into, I think, a big shift, and that is, whereas Chuck Chuck Schumer was saying, bragging constantly about his daughter working at Facebook, they all wanted to be bask in the warm glow of the innovation light and out-compete each other to say, we need to embrace innovation.

Let's not charge sales tax for Amazon.

Or we need these nascent platforms need to grow.

Okay, so don't hold them to the same standards as every other media company.

And now the worm has turned.

And they're all it's like, it's like in third grade when everyone decides

little scott

yeah that he's that he's a dork and we should make fun of him because he's

like me doing that to you yeah everyone finds oh wait we have spotted the weak gazelle let's tear it apart limb from limb i laughed kids are cruel jesus christ kids are cruel anyways except things just to digress for a moment i dropped my kid off my uh seventh grade son at school and a bunch of ninth graders came walking down the hallway and i was behind them so they couldn't see me i thought uh-oh right and they said high-five, little dude.

And they high-fived him away.

Yeah, kids aren't.

Oh, my God.

The world has changed.

They would have thrown me in a trash can if I was in the same hallway as ninth graders.

You must be surprised.

And by the way, by the way, I'm not sure it's a good thing that kids don't get a little bit of annoying.

No, anyways.

No, that was never good.

I learned how to be funny.

I learned how to navigate.

I learned how to make alliances.

You know what?

I'm going to come there and hit you on the head and see how that teaches.

A certain amount of bullying, as long as it doesn't traumatize you, a certain amount of it is good.

Oh, all right.

We've been coddling our kids for way too much.

Casual cruelty among them.

We don't want them, Kara, we don't want our kids psychologically safe.

We want them psychologically strong.

Get it, but that's just

debate, not bullying.

Anyway, okay.

Debate.

Good sir.

You have three minutes.

Yeah, right.

I like the cut of that jig.

By the way, listen, we're going to keep straight.

Make your point about land the flames.

Land the planes.

If you want to get bullied, brag about being on the debate team, which I was.

All right.

Which I was.

Oh, God.

I would so bully you in Tyson.

Anyways, anyways.

So

look, I think it's the same thing.

I think that these guys, big tech, has earned a reputation as not being on the side.

of society.

We have finally figured out they're not going to take care of us when we're older.

They're not conditioned with

the state of our souls.

And people have had it, and they've become the worm has turned.

People have said we're fed up.

The worm has turned.

And the new blue line path to the governor's mansion, from the AG's mansion, isn't to talk about how incredible these companies are.

It's to go after them.

Yeah, and she's

consistent.

She's consistent.

And New York is where it should happen.

And so that's a good thing.

And that's where a lot of stuff should happen.

All right, but that leads into the big story.

Let's talk about the global battle with tech giants.

Australia has a bill that's got to be passed, that it's getting close to being passed, that will require Facebook and Google and others to pay news publishers for content in some ways.

A complicated bill.

and it's it's called the code the news media arbitration code um we talked about this on tuesday's episodes but google's google had threatened to leave australia if the bill were passed but didn't make the move and then um and then made a deal with three of the biggest publishers in australia uh including news corp and it made a more global deal with newscorp not in the us but in other places to do some payment.

Facebook instead walked away from the table in negotiations over amendments and this and that,

and it said it wasn't going to pay and it wasn't going to be part of it, and so it closed off all the news links and then by accident closed off all kinds of important links, health and safety ones, right?

Um, because of the way they machine-learned it, essentially.

Um, the proposed law, let me just say, this is the Facebook Managing Director in Australia.

The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relation between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.

It left us facing a stark choice, attempt to comply with the law that ignores the realities of this relationship, stop allowing news content on our services in Australia with a heavy heart.

We chose the latter.

They had a heavy heart,

Scott.

Are they okay?

Are they okay?

Are they okay?

No, they've never.

So, look, you're going to, I know you actually have been

on Facebook.

So, give us your take on this.

You know,

I hate to say this.

It's like

this bill in Australia has been very much pushed by Rupert Murdoch and his minions, Robert Thompson and others.

And so you got to wonder, right?

So it feels like, and and i think i'm going with casey newton's there's others who think differently but casey newton the verge has essentially said it's a shakedown um and he's not the verge anymore he's a thing called platformer he has a substack called platformer and uh you know i think what he wrote is correct that this is um is a real uh problem uh

for it's not the way to solve the problem and it looks like a payoff he calls it crony capitalism that it's a you know i think it's a racket kind of thing for rupert murdoch and so you know even if you don't like the tech companies, this law is many people is deeply flawed.

Even if you don't like Facebook, I think the key internet principle of hyperlinking should be free and clear is important.

Now, what they've done is Google, they don't want to get it to be paying for putting, being in the search engine, right?

They don't want to pay for every search link for news media.

So what they've done is they have this special area of Google where they're going to be paying people for being on it, the three news publishers, and they'll make deals with all the others, I guess.

And

then we'll go from there, right?

Essentially, that's what Google is.

Google should have done this because they have a different business.

Facebook was like, no, and because news is a very small part of its business, like 4%,

they decided, no, we're going to take them down.

They pushed away from the bargaining table and they said, no, thank you.

But it caused a lot of hubbub.

Like, how dare they?

You know, David Cicillini was like, this shows they're a monopoly.

It doesn't show their monopoly.

It just, they're not having the news links.

And they, you know, everyone was like, all kinds of nefarious things.

In this case,

no Australian news org to be linked to Facebook anywhere.

International news was restricted on the Australian platform.

You can put up cat videos.

But what they did is they dragged some pandemic information sites and other things into it, which caused great consternation.

But let me just say,

they were right to do so if they wanted to, because they don't have to pay for news links.

That is not quarters business.

It shouldn't have to.

Very much like we talked about Amazon not wanting to host Parlor.

It doesn't want the business.

And so it shouldn't be forced into even binding arbitration to do this.

Other people tell you this is a great way to do regulation.

It's, you know, it's loose regulation where parties talk to each other, but I don't know if anyone should have to pay for links, like if they don't want to.

And again, I think it's a gimme for Rupert Murdoch and his and News Corp.

So, well, but it's going around the globe too, this idea of paying for content on these platforms is going around the globe.

And you talked about it with the New York Times.

So I don't think they did it really well.

And to be looking like a, like, like evil compared to Rupert Murdoch is hard to do.

It's hard to do.

But that's what has happened here, it looks like.

Yeah, it's, there's so much here.

So one of the, I think probably the more, or one of the more interesting things is, is the distinguishing, it shows the distinctions between Facebook and Google's core business.

And I've always said that Google is God, and that is you don't, you trust the return.

A prayer is just a query into the universe hoping for some divine intervention that sends you back an answer that you think is more credible than any other answer from an entity you don't understand that sees everything, evaluates everything, and then distills it back to

a great response.

That's prayer.

We pray to Google 3 billion times a day, and we trust it more than any priest, rabbi, scholar, mentor, or boss.

And their business is largely dependent upon getting really accurate,

up-to-the-minute credible news.

And Google, unlike Facebook, does need credible news.

So if your site gets links from the New York Times, which is evaluated as credible, you come up in the search rankings and we all benefit.

Now, Facebook is a friend.

that wants to keep your attention all the time, even if it's selling gossip or lies.

Its job is, they're not in the news business, they're in the friend business, and their motivation is not credibility, their motivation is engagement.

Now, YouTube is more like Facebook than Google.

YouTube is also a menace, but the two are different.

And Google has decided that news is so central.

And also, Google is pulling a little bit of an Apple card here and saying, we want to separate from Facebook.

And while I agree with you around some of the Murdoch stuff and that, okay, maybe he's an unwitting winner of this or not, or

he's been lobbying for this.

He runs the Australian Games.

Do you remember, though, 15 years ago, he tried to do the same thing?

He did.

He did.

And in Germany.

And then people, including myself, when I was on Bloomberg TV, said, no, we need to support our new guys.

The old guard is just trying to entrench themselves.

But here's the thing.

When you're in the business of importing into Australia and pulling up tankers every day and then unloading

some good things, but a lot of division, a lot of hate, a lot of misinformation, and then you fill it up with money and leave.

And there are no hospital wings or universities in Australia named after Facebook billionaires.

They're like, they start doing the math.

And even if this specific action

is not logical or pure, at the end of the day, people are just fed up with these.

I get it, but it doesn't mean you should put a law like all Mark Zuckerberg's are declared illegal.

I mean, I agree with you.

There's tons of ways they could have taxed it.

They could have done a million different things here.

And by the way, one of the things, we don't know if any of this money is actually going to journalism.

I think it's going to Rupert Murdoch's pocket.

And so there wasn't anything in the law that said this money had to be spent on more journalism.

But then Rupert Murdoch was acting like the bastion of journalism.

And I'm sorry, this guy has spewed more toxic waste out into the news world than almost anybody in history.

So I'm not like getting my journalism cues from Rupert Murdoch in any way.

And so even though he owns the Wall Street Journal, and that's a very good news organization, I think it's great in spite of his ownership.

But I don't know.

This is like the, this is, I don't know.

But this is not the bill to do it.

Yeah, but if this is a war between Murdoch and Zuckerberg, I hope the bullets win.

Okay, but it's not the way to do it.

It's not the way to help journalism.

It doesn't create a new business model this is where it's all headed karao and and i said this two years ago but i got the regions right wrong i said that a nation in northern europe or in latin america was going to ban facebook this is that could happen with this this is a step

i i love australia i'm i'm friends with a lot a decent number of australians i've been there i i feel like i have some connection to the culture there you know what you don't with australia whether they're whether this legislation is elegant or not when when zuckerberg and and then the spokesperson from Facebook says, in terms of the trade between Facebook and news media, news media has garnered more out of this relationship.

Oh, my God, what bullshit.

And when they take their ball and go home, whereas Google tries to be, I think, a little bit more statesmanlike.

Well, they were Sundar Pichai is a peaceful.

He's like, this could be more problem than it's worth.

We'll just pay up.

And they were going to pay a billion dollars over three years.

But this is where it happens.

Anyway.

The legislation is unimportant.

All this is, is a skirmish battle

that's going to escalate because Facebook has not handled it well.

Agreed.

And

Australia, oh my gosh.

You don't know.

They aren't afraid of anybody.

They will shut Facebook down.

Let me again bring in Rupert Murdoch.

I think Facebook just handled one of the most unscrupulous men on the planet, a major, who has major sway over politics in the U.S.

and Australia, a potent PR weapon.

I think that's really the heart.

And what I would imagine they should take away from this is the level of ire at Facebook is receiving over issue where it's not, where it is not the wrong thing to do, what it did, is you have to notice how much it's an ugly preview of what's to come when it gets scrutiny for things it actually does wrong.

And people, no one really likes or trusts Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg, they just don't.

And that's really where it goes.

And when he does stuff like that, even if it's the principal thing to do, and I think linking in a free and open internet is,

it doesn't matter.

He gets no benefit of the doubt because he's not likable.

He's not likable.

He'll pay.

He'll pay.

No one's in a hurry to be fair with Mr.

Zuckerberg anymore.

No one's in a hurry to be thoughtful about legislation.

They're in a hurry to be angry and deservedly so.

I look at Murdoch almost like,

again, I take everything back to World War II.

They're the Russians.

Do we share their values?

Do we especially like them?

No, but we need them.

And also, the thing about News Corps.

Well, hold on.

Hold on.

Let me ask you this, though.

And I asked this as an honest question.

Facebook and Google control 70, 80%

of every digital dollar.

Does News Corps control that much?

Is News Corps really that dominant?

News Corp has heralded in the era we live in now through their cynical and persistent use of media to divide, to anger, to spread disinformation.

They're in a lawsuit right now with Dominion and others.

I think they're in trouble in that regard.

I think they have done, they're outsized their size in terms of tarnishing tarnishing civic discourse on the planet i think he's one of the most damaging if i had to pick between him and mark zuckerberg two things i would pick two things

two things um first off i don't i i'm not sure you can really say that when tucker carlson has accused the president and the first lady of their relationship being fake i'm not sure

i'm not sure that's fair care i said i i just want to acknowledge the point that's way of that's my way of acknowledging the point my second question is had you not worked for news corps and been so scarred, would you be this trouble?

I wasn't scarred by it.

He got along with me.

We got along.

Like, I had dinner with him.

He's like, I call him Uncle Satan because he's so affable.

You know what I mean?

But I, you know, he's just a terrible human being.

He's a terrible.

He's been a terrible influence on the planet.

I immediately go to, oh my gosh, like, what food did they order?

Caroline.

It was me and Walt and the guy, one of the, one of his CEOs that came and went and his ex-wife, Wendy.

And he used to call me on the phone during the whole, when he was trying to find out about what was going on with Yahoo.

Remember when Yahoo was sort of for sale?

He kind of wanted to buy it with Peter Chernin?

He'd call me at three in the morning because he was up when I was in the house.

A quick pause.

Isn't it crazy?

I have a couple

billionaires in my life and one acts as a mentor for me.

And it's hilarious.

There's something about when someone becomes a billionaire where when they call you, they don't even tell you who you are or ask, ask, or announce themselves or ask if you're busy.

They're just like, they just start talking.

Right.

No, that's what he did.

They just call it.

He mumbles toxic what?

It's not.

Do you have a minute?

It's just they pick up the moment and they just start.

What was funny, like, I found out later.

I'm not going to say how.

Are you having another stroke or are you trying to impersonate a group of murders?

Listen, this is my last story of this, and we're going to move on.

He...

He had a secretary who was wonderful.

I have to say.

He had one of those longtime secretaries who was wonderful.

And he

was just I like the term assistant.

I think she's a person.

Whatever.

She was a secretary.

Disparaging.

She wouldn't.

My mother was a secretary.

It was like old-timey.

You know, I'm like, can't you just text me, Rupert?

Like, everybody else does.

Everyone else texts me.

You know, they do that.

Does your agent do that?

My agent calls me, hold the line for David Wilshaft.

That kind of thing.

Yeah.

Okay, this is in the fucking 50s.

Are we going to go?

We're literally, we're going to go see the Johnny Carson show and have drinks with Angie Dickinson afterwards.

Hold for.

I'm like, whenever he got to the phone, I'm like, yeah, I know you're very important.

Do you really need to?

She was so nice, I would hold.

She was so nice.

She was the loveliest woman at Rupert Murdoch's secretary.

Anyway, I would hold and he would get on.

And it was like, I was going to say,

lovely man.

I'm sorry.

Okay, good.

Lovely man.

He would just like say, like, what's going on?

He literally was always crawling for information.

I appreciated that about him, right?

Oh, but he's clearly intellectually curious and a genius.

It's just unfortunately he's working for Satan.

Yeah.

Let me just tell you one time.

I'm going to tell you one last Rupert Murdoch story.

He's going to die in a second.

He never knew my name for the longest time.

He loved walt mossberg he loved walt mossberg like he was always walt walt how you doing

and he was always waiting i gotta be honest walt is much more likable than i know that but he loved reading walt he did he loved newspapers that's one thing i think he did he does circle things and stuff like that so he literally could never remember he just pretended he didn't that he never called my name and so one time i said to him i said listen i think you don't mind know my name it's kara swisher next time i see you could you try to remember my name and and he he has a hearing problem kind of, I think.

And he pretended he didn't hear me say that to him.

And then he knew my name the next time.

It was great.

That is great.

That is great.

Anyway, oh, Rubber Marker.

Anyway, in this case, he's the villain.

I'm sorry.

Even though Mark Zuckerberg looks like it.

Okay, last thing we're going to do, we're going to move on.

We'll see.

They're going to settle everything in Australia eventually.

But meanwhile, Epic Games,

they will.

They will.

Facebook doesn't.

It's not a good look for Facebook.

They got to settle it.

He's already talking to the whoever he needs, the commissioner there.

They're very tough.

The commissioner, the antitrust guy there, is really tough.

The video game maker behind Fortnite, Epic Games, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in the European Union.

Again, going availing themselves to other venues.

There's similar lawsuits in the U.S., Australia, and the UK.

At the core of the legal dispute is how much control and revenue share technology giants should have in relation to popular apps.

Fortnite was kicked out of both Apple's App Store and Google Play Store last year after cutting off the companies from 30% of their revenue, which is the vague.

Again, going international.

This is going international.

What do you think about this?

Well, it's simple.

Like I said, when you get all of the election

perversion, when you get all of the job destruction, when you get the anti-competitive behavior, when you get the division,

and you get a fraction of the upside because you're not getting the taxes, you're not getting the jobs.

You don't know that, you know, people in Europe don't have that many nephews or nieces who have made a bunch of money at Google or Facebook.

It stiffens their backbones, their backbone.

And so these companies have decided they want to go to more friendly venues where the tide has turned a while ago against these companies.

Right.

And it's more of the same thing.

Epic tried to build a platform within a platform so they could charge or charge less.

They wanted to charge, I think, their creators or their developers 20% instead of 30%.

And Apple said, no, thanks.

We're not going to allow that.

And so

they're going after them.

It's going to be very, very interesting.

It'll be interesting.

It's interesting.

Here's the difference.

People like Apple.

They're very deaf at loving Apple.

Fair point.

Fair point.

It's going to be much tougher for Epic to handle this one.

And we'll see.

And I don't mean like, like, law is law, right?

You know, I don't think Donald Trump lost because people don't like him.

I think he lost because, you know, it was all Trump judges.

Like, no, this is not good law.

So I don't necessarily think likability, but there is an element of Apple being more willing, just like Sundar, Pachaya, Google, to play the game.

And I think that's, and Facebook isn't.

I can see Mark deciding this, like this decision on Australia, but he's going to have to walk it back.

He's going to.

They've got too many.

They're antitrust, the commissioner, the community, I think, forget his name.

He's a tough customer.

And even if he's controlled by Murdoch, this is not good for Facebook.

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

We'll come back to talk about congressional hearings about Robinhood and GameStop and a listener mail question on Bitcoin.

Running a business comes with a lot of what-ifs, but luckily, there's a simple answer to them.

Shopify.

It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, including Thrive Cosmetics and Momofuku.

And it'll help you with everything you need.

From website design and marketing to boosting sales and expanding operations, Shopify can get the job done and make your dream a reality.

Turn those what-ifs into

sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com/slash special offer.

Support for Pivot comes from Groons.

If you've ever done a deep internet dive trying to discover different nutrition solutions, you've likely had the thought, surely there's a way to improve my skin, gut health, immunity, brain fog without offending my taste buds.

Well, there is.

It's called Groons.

Groons are a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a daily snack pack of gummies.

It's not a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic.

It's all of those things and then some for a fraction of the price.

In a Groons daily snack pack, you get more than 20 vitamins and minerals, 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, plus more than 60 ingredients.

They include nutrient-dense and whole foods, all of which will help you out in different ways.

For example, Groons has six times the gut health ingredients compared to the leading greens powders.

It contains biotin and niacinamide, which helps with thicker hair, nails, and skin health.

They also contain mushrooms, which can help with brain function.

And of course, you're probably familiar with vitamin C and how great it's for your immune system.

On top of all, groons are vegan and free of dairy, nuts, and gluten.

Get up to 52% off when you go to groons.co and use the code PIVOT.

That's G-R-U-N-S dot C-O using the code PIVOT for 52%

off.

Okay, Scott, we're back.

Congress will be hearing testimony today,

or tomorrow, about the GameStop incident.

We're recording on Thursday.

It takes place today.

Maxine Waters is doing it.

And she's has several days of hearings on this issue, but they're bringing in the leaders of Robinhood, Melvin Capital, which is the hedge fund that lost all that money, Reddit, and Citadel, which owns part of Melvin Capital and also Order Flow, etc.

They'll testify over the House Financial Services Committee.

They're expected to address Citadel's relationship with Robinhood and Melvin Capital and why the brokerages shut down trading and how to protect retail investors.

As a reminder, last month, amateur investors on Reddit, retail investors, they're also called Thread, skyrocketed the video game retailer GameStops stock.

Robinhood later put trade limits on the new

on GameStop stocks, which caused a lot of people first they squeeze the hedge funds and then they squeeze some of these retail investors.

So Scott, what do you think about this?

What will come of these hearings?

I think nothing.

Nothing, honey.

I think it's going to be theater.

And I hope that our elected representatives demonstrate more acumen than the initial kind of big tech hearings.

And I also, to be blunt, I really like what Adam Grant said, that if you have

a thoughtful person

evolves and admits they were wrong, I hope they don't make the same mistake I did and start stereotyping the traders as one demographic that needs paternal protection.

That is not the way to go.

Any legislation, any regulation should be.

What happened here was what I would call as an honest pump.

And they use different methods, different mediums, but it's nothing that Bill Ackman and other hedge funds haven't been doing to each other for a long time.

The other thing is on the other side of the aisle, that is the generation that kind of empathizes with Roaring Kitty and thinking.

Roaring Kitty will be there today, too.

And thinks there was a conspiracy against them.

They're going to find out that the good news is the conspiracy that they want to buy into, that Citadel partnered with Robin Hood

to stop the trading such that they could protect their buddies in Melvin, that is just not true.

Citadel,

there wasn't an antitrust conspiracy.

It was a liquidity squeeze.

Apex Financial is the one you don't hear about that stepped in.

Yeah, they just said, look, 50% of your accounts are trading in GameStop.

We can't provide margin on this thing because it can go up 50% or up or down 50% in a given day.

And we're not going to track down 500,000 young people and try and get our $700 back when the stock goes down 70%.

Anyways,

that's the good news.

The conspiracy they're worried about and has been promoted, quite frankly, by some billionaires and congresspeople all posing from the millennial cameras.

The good news is that conspiracy did not happen.

The bad news is that there is a broader, much more dangerous conspiracy against young people.

And that is slowly but surely, whether it's mortgage, interest on mortgages, whether it's capital gains, tax, whether it's transferring a trillion dollars from young people to old people, the wealthiest cohort in history, whether it's skyrocketing education costs, everything we've done in America the last 30 years is simply a transfer of wealth from young people to older, rich people.

So the conspiracy of two hedge funds trying to go after young people, that's not true.

That's the good news.

The bad news is the conspiracy is worse against young people right now.

And I hope they talk about that because

if talk about any regulation, they've got to say, all right, we're going to regulate everybody,

not just the younger apps.

I think Robin Hood is a menace.

There's something to be said for watching these, you know, the SEO of Reddit's going to be there, Steve Huffman, too.

I think watching these platforms and ability to manipulate them is a good thing.

But going after Roaring Kitty for being a license broker, maybe a slap on the wrist for this guy because

he didn't disclose that he was.

But nothing he wrote, I looked at the stuff.

He was not doing anything that was not easy to, it wasn't insider anyway.

What is he doing that Bill Ackman doesn't do?

No,

well, he should have disclosed.

He should have disclosed it.

Well, this is that's the

parking ticket.

Key, key thing here, and I actually think this is going to, I believe that the anonymity of the people, people

pretending to be someone else on the internet and not disclosing their intentions, I think that is going to be a big, big issue of the next two to three years.

And I've complained about this, but I think there are some very well-known people who create multiple accounts and go after other people to attack their credibility, such as this.

You know, that happens.

I've read about it a hundred times with among these people.

But it is, you know, Bobby Axelrod right now is trying to figure out a game this one.

Right now, he's like trying to figure out how to become Roaring Kitty or something like that.

That is a fictional character, Bobby Axelrod.

Axel

billions.

But, you know,

this will probably be a plot on that show when it comes back.

Oh, 100%.

You know, I think it's good to have them for educational purposes.

And, you know, Elizabeth Warren was talking about,

did the interview with Stephanie to getting the SEC getting off its rear.

As things change, they really do have to spend a lot more time

monitoring things and policing things in different ways.

And they haven't done that.

And she's 100% right about that.

And so more transparency and how this is done and bringing more people into the market is a great thing.

More education, more, you know, if it turns out there's an effort to addict people, that should be looked at.

But we can't treat these kids.

You know, one of the things Stephanie said was that her cables

guy was saying he's in it when she was putting the thing and she was like should we prevent these people i was like you're not their mama like you know what i mean like but at the same time we have to protect people with education literacy um and and give them a leg up you know a fair leg up here and i think we'll we'll see how much this goes but i think this whole anger thing by everybody sort of virtue signaling on this thing of the you know the youngs versus the oldest did you see the winklevoss twins on cm whatever i just am like they want to stop us us trading.

Let's show the man.

Let's go into silver.

Say billionaires educated at Harvard, the road crew who have a position in silver.

When a billionaire is telling you to hold the line or claiming there's a movement, you're about to get a spear in the chest.

Yep, agree.

Agreed.

There's a few things here because I think this is fascinating.

People should be allowed to buy and sell stock.

That's their right.

Their right is to

people should be allowed to trade and have fun.

People should be allowed to learn.

What I hope, though, is that people recognize that trading is usually gambling, that 80 to 95 percent of people lose money.

Just be cognizant of that.

If you're getting a DOPA hit, great.

I love DOPA, but just be clear, getting DOPA usually costs money.

And that if you day trade, 80 to 95% likelihood, you will end up with less money.

If you invest in the markets and focus on something else, unless you want to be in finance full-time, such that you can spend less than you make and then put that money into the market.

If you hold stocks, a basket of stocks, for at least 20 years, no one has ever lost money in the history of the world.

You know what Terrace does?

She just sticks it.

I don't even know.

I don't even look at it.

I'm just going to hoping when I'm a certain age that it's not going to be a good thing.

Well, here's the answer.

Here's the good news.

I 100% know how you can get rich.

Here's the bad news.

The answer is slowly.

Yeah.

And it requires a certain stoicism, and that is spending.

Everything around you is convincing you that everyone is more successful than you than you.

There's FOMA.

You want to get in.

Even I was like, why wasn't in GameStop?

And then I'm like, I got to stop.

You got to stop.

You got to get the FOMA out of the way or stock

fear of missing anything.

Well, people keep, I keep making predictions about Bitcoin.

And people say, well, do you own any?

And I say, no, I'm probably going to buy some one because I just don't want to have the pain.

If it goes to 100,000, which I think it's going to, or even if it goes to 500,000, I don't want the FOMO.

So I'm going to buy a few coins.

And the problem is, and the reason I haven't, and one of the reasons I'm not, you know, one of my many flaws as an investor is I always want to buy stuff on sale.

So I have a tough time buying into something that keeps on the way up.

The other thing is, the reason I haven't bought it is that if you're going to be in finance and you're generally learning about finance and you want to go get certified and be in the field more power to you brothers and sisters it's a great industry but if you're just watching netflix all the time and telling your parents you're interested in film that that's not that's not a way to make make a living you have to you have

the best thing to do to get you know or one of the means to get rich is focus on something that will get you enough income such that you could spend less than your income and i think a lot of a lot of people are using excuses or I'm learning or I'm interested in finance.

Well, okay, are you really?

Or are you just gambling for a dope hit?

Yep, exactly.

Very fair point, Scott Galloway.

So everybody jump in the pool, but just at least know what's going to happen when the water goes out.

Just be honest with yourself.

Yeah.

Yep.

100%.

Gambling is fun.

Learning is great, but those things usually cost money.

Not that we recommend that you spend all your money gambling.

You know what?

Highest suicide rate of any addiction.

Because people don't know what's going on until it's too late.

When you're a raging alcoholic, people step in.

Even when you have a

gambling addictions are scary.

I've had some friends.

And you know what?

And people got angry at me because I made a stereotype that was all men, and I heard from a bunch of women.

But did you know in gambling, 23% of men develop a problem, and only 7% of women, the male brain seems to be more predisposed to a gambling addiction than women.

And also the highest suicide rate of any addiction.

Thank you for that information.

It was also a plot on Bridgerton.

Anyway, moving on, let's take, yes, let's take a listener male question.

You've got, you've got, I can't believe believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail.

Hi, Scott and Kara.

My name is Michael.

I have a question primarily for Scott.

Scott, you predicted that Bitcoin is going to cross the $100 barrier,

and yet you also mentioned that you don't own any.

I was wondering what makes you stay away from Bitcoin.

I've heard many good reasons to stay away from it.

One of them is environmental reasons, but I'm curious about yours.

Just so you know, Michael, it's a $100,000 barrier.

$100 is

the first thing.

Let me ask you this.

Were you triggered when you said primarily Scott?

This question is for primarily Scott.

You're a little jealous of the dog.

This question is for primarily Scott.

But between us, I'm the only one that actually owns Bitcoin somewhere in the middle of the day.

Which you can't find because you lost the password.

I love that.

Oh, my God.

If it goes to 100, I literally, that's a million dollars somewhere in my trash or in a box in my house.

Ugh God, it's gone.

I think it's gone.

You know, pretend like most rich people that you don't think about money.

That's the one I that's the one I love.

They're like, they're like, oh, I don't think about money.

I could buy a hitman and get rich.

Yeah, right.

I know.

I hate when rich people say that.

I've never really

thought out.

Anyone who says they've never really thought about money is

obsessed with it.

I am

investigated hitmen, and they're very expensive.

Anyway, all right, let's answer the question of this young man who asked the question primarily Scottish.

Primarily Scott.

I sort of answered this.

One, I'm going to buy a few coins so I don't just hate myself if the thing goes crazy.

But I don't want to buy an investment.

The way I make my living is through teaching, writing, and speaking.

And I don't want to be tracking, and I fall into this trap.

I don't want to be checking my phone 20 times a day and tracking Bitcoin.

I find it exhausting.

And I find that it leads you to an emotional state where you end up trading a lot.

And there's just a ton of research showing the more you trade, the more you lose because you can't trust your emotions.

And there's fees.

Even when you're trading on what's supposed to be a fee less platform, you're not.

There's fees because the way they make their fees is by giving you a worse price on the bid or the ask.

So, one,

I will probably buy some coins and then just ignore them, but I don't want an investment that you have to track and invest a lot of.

You're totally going to track it, though, aren't you?

If you buy like two, you're just going to be sitting there watching.

Okay, maybe a little bit.

Maybe a lot bit.

A lot bit.

A lot bit.

You're just going to talk about Bitcoin incessantly.

What about other cryptocurrencies?

Is there any others you want to buy?

Something like like 99% of coins

have gone to zero.

Doge, not Dogecoins either?

Dogecoin was constructed or invented by a 34-year-old who's basically said this is a fraud and it has $11 billion market capitalization or capitalization right now.

But if you think about, so let's go back to why my thesis is around Bitcoin going to,

I predicted it would go to 50 when it was at 19.

Right.

It's going to 100.

Also, I should disclose, I also thought Palantir was going to get, was going to go down.

It went public at 10.

It's at 30.

So I got that one wrong.

Anyways, Bitcoin right now has got so much heat around it.

And I think you're going to see several dozen companies, big companies

announce that they're converting part of their treasury to Bitcoin.

That'll do it.

And it's going to potentially end the limited, the scarcity around it.

Very intelligent people, including Michael Saylor or intelligent people.

No, they're just getting in.

It's a speculative purchase, right?

As are most stocks.

Well, no, you know, you know, Disney has a business.

This is not this gold, I guess, would be, although you can do things with gold.

Right, but see, that's an interesting point.

Gold funds are going down, and it's the correlation, the inverse correlation, it's definitely, there's definitely a correlation between Bitcoin going up.

And I don't want to say, I don't even think of Bitcoin as investing.

I do think it's speculation because you could wake up tomorrow and it could be down 40 or 50%.

And I personally don't like anything.

People say, people who are pretending to give investment advice think that they assuage their bad advice by saying, you should be prepared to lose it all.

That's not investing.

If you're investing, you should not be prepared to lose.

Assuage?

It's assuage.

Assuage.

Assuage.

I like the cut of your jam, but not

English pronunciation.

Bye.

Jean-Claude Juncker is the EU commissioner who said, I didn't give him credit the last time.

We all know what needs to be done.

We just don't know how to get re-elected.

Assuage my fears.

on, assuage my fear.

Assuage my fears.

It sounds dirty.

It sounds dirty.

Listen to me.

So what you're not going to buy anything else.

You're just going to buy your two Bitcoin and pretend you're not paying attention to it every second.

Is that correct?

Is that the case?

Here's the thing.

Any investment that you have to track and spend a lot of time either is filling a dopa hit where you should be getting your dopa somewhere else, and it also lowers your returns because you have to track it and follow it.

And I don't want to do that.

It's like owning a lizard.

And also, I have trouble personally.

I can't quite get my head around.

I think I understand Disney stock.

I think I understand even currencies.

I think I understand real estate.

I do not understand Bitcoin.

I can't figure out if it's an asset, a currency, or a payment method.

And I think it benefits from hiding in that nether netherland where no one really knows what it is.

Smart, Scott, you are on Fuego today.

All right.

That is correct.

Thank you, Michael.

I'm just trying to assuage your criticism.

Okay, you tell us when you buy the Bitcoin, okay?

Let us know.

When you buy the coin.

And by the way, if I find mine, we're going to go somewhere.

Champagne and cocaine for the moment.

We're going.

We are getting.

We're doing it.

Let's go to Cancun and party with Heidi Cruz.

heidi let's do rails with heidi cruz oh my god so damn it the young people oh my god the young drug lingo the dlingo take another moment and talk about ted cruz

i like to party with heidi i think heidi seems very like the whole thing is fantastic it's like it you know what it's like a several different movies we've got contagion going on all the time you know the movie contagion and now the day after tomorrow which is the jake gyllenhall like we're freezing cold.

Freezing cold thing.

And like there's the evil vice president who is played by Ted Cruz who doesn't believe anything.

Right.

Like, so, and then he like dunks on reporters all day.

People, like the stories of people in Texas like starving, there's ice everywhere.

If he did this, man, oh man, what is going?

And someone said, they said, they said, the problem is if Ted Cruz went to Cancun in the middle of a Texas weather crisis, energy crisis and weather crisis, it's only the second worst thing he's done this year which

which is of course backing the insurrection uh which was a nice refusing to certify the vote does he not want to get elected again beto o'rourke is busy like calling seniors and bringing seniors warm soup like that's what he's been doing the whole time and jose andres is making food for everybody like do they do they want to turn texas blue is that what their goal is here what is the deal and abbot like blaming wind energy like he's friggin' donald trump what is going on i just i just sand beto next to ted cruise and i literally think of like

don't asswage go asswage yourself anyways

and i i put beto next to ted and i literally thought this is the the least and the the the the most sexy people in the world and they're running against each other and less sexy one i just i couldn't i that made no sense to me

because i think now i think he's fit maybe if he isn't finished i texas has got to secede at this point

You've decided they need to secede.

Texas and Florida.

By the way, Texas.

Okay, just

make themselves instead of Texas, Florida.

Just so you know, Texas and Florida, if they secede, if they secede,

the nation,

there are no states doing better right now than Texas and Florida.

It's fine.

Other than that, even California will be back and we'll like carry Carolina and New York will be back and we'll carry everybody.

Don't worry about it.

And they can have like other states.

I'm not against secession at this point.

They can have other states.

Well, that's mighty fine fine of you cara

they take some we take you know whatever hell you can

you know a lot of silicon valley people want to secede california anyway

and break it up too into pieces whatever all right scott one more quick break we'll be back for predictions

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Tires matter.

They're the only part of your vehicle that touches the road.

Tread confidently with new tires from Tire Rack.

Whether you're looking for expert recommendations or know exactly what you want tire rack makes it easy fast free shipping free road hazard protection convenient installation options and the best selection of bridgestone tires go to tire rack.com to see their bridgestone test results tire ratings and reviews and be sure to check out all the special offers tire rack.com the way tire buying should be

Okay, Scott, prediction time.

I'm going to predict Tez Cruz loses the election, but okay, that's my prediction.

Four or five years.

Maybe so.

You know, he's in some taggy hotel in Cancun.

I know.

You know, he's into some bad hotel that's like, all you can eat.

It's like sandals or something.

It's just, you know.

No, I know the name of it.

It's, they had it on the internet.

The encyclopedia browns of the internet have located him.

They called the hotel.

It was like, they were looking at his wrinkles.

It was such a good moment for Twitter.

Like, just eat it.

Giddy.

It was fun.

It was fun to watch.

It was fun to watch the whole thing.

And, you know, people were actually being like, if he was in Cancun, this would be if his haircut wasn't right, this belt he was wearing, his face mask had this thing saying, come and take it.

Or, you know, it's a stupid gun reference.

And so anyway, so prediction time, prediction time.

Well, I stole my thunder.

I just think you're going to see, and I said this on Tuesday,

there's what I call an honest pump.

An honest pump is Bill Ackman going on CNBC and saying why JC Pennys is undervalued.

An honest pump is a CEO talking about

why their sector is powerful and trying to position a kid in their accounting department using a spreadsheet as AI, right?

There's these honest pumps.

I think what the Reddit movement was at its core kind of an honest pump around coordination, people trying to, and it's nothing anyone hasn't done.

I think there's going to be a ton of what I'll call honest pumps by companies.

converting Treasury to Bitcoin.

And that is going to, similar to like the craziness when Kodak said it was producing, I forget those machines where you can mine Bitcoin and the stock went up 400% in a day.

Twitter, Facebook, MicroStrategy, and Tesla have all

gone into Bitcoin.

And the stock bump has ranged from MicroStrategy stock is up 500%

since in the last 12 months.

And everybody, and I've even heard some discussions on some of the boards I'm on, is thinking about this.

In addition, one specific company, and we've talked about this, I think Jack Dorsey has an incredible feel for products.

And also, he obviously understands a lot about payment, given that he's the full-time CEO of a company called Square.

I think he is going to announce something at Twitter around

crypto

involving like your ability to start your own coin trading plan.

I don't know what it'll be.

He's brighter than me.

But you're going to see some big announcements from what I'll call old line, old economy companies around Bitcoin.

And I think that honest pump, and I'm not saying Bitcoin is a good long-term investment.

I don't understand it.

I don't own any, but it's going to be in the news a lot in the next 60 days.

Anyways, that's my prediction.

Corporations and Bitcoin.

I'm going to make a tiny prediction about today's hearing since we already talked about it.

I think it'll be a real test of Vlad Tenev, the CEO of Robin Hood.

He's finally clarified his stances and everything else and is trying to be articulate.

They've hired a lot of fancy people to help him, by the way, a former SEC commissioner and a lawyer that helped Mark Zuckerberg at the hearings.

So I'm interested in how he performs and whether he stays in his job.

I'm not, I'm biased because I think these young men don't lack

are the new menace economy.

I think their idols are Facebook and Google.

I think they have the wrong role models.

And also, I've heard him speak.

I don't think he's ready for prime time.

If there's a really ugly colour.

They hired some fancy people to help him.

I'll tell you that.

Yeah, but they hired a lot of fancy people.

They got some fluffers.

They got some fluffers in there, as they say.

I'm so glad you said that um but they had a lot of fancy people around mark zuckerberg and he looked like he was gonna have a stroke when you interviewed him and started asking him real questions you work with what you got um uh i i i've heard that guy respond uh when he was on with andrew rostorkin i don't think he served himself well yeah and by the way that shit's hard i say stupid things on tv all the time so i'm not saying it's easy i don't think he's ready for prime time we'll see he wouldn't come on my suede program need to come on suede yeah yeah but that's what you call good judgment

what i'm a pussycat step into my lair i'm a pussycat i'm a pussycat until i rip your aortic artery hi

and say would you like to use this like look at this sharp knife you should put it at your neck and say something please say more and say more say more is what i always say continue continue

anyway there's so much news everybody and there's going to be lots more news next week and i think it'll be interesting to see what happens in australia i mean in one way, it'd be kind of nice if people go to actual people's websites.

And they don't, I think breaking the, as Casey Newton wrote, breaking the idea that they need Google and Facebook for everything could be an interesting moment for news organizations.

This is the slow banning.

Go Australia.

Literally, don't fuck with Australia.

Yeah.

They're not scared of anybody.

No, they are not scared of anybody.

Well, I don't know.

I don't think we should necessarily follow some Australian things.

In any case, it'll be fascinating.

Interesting to come here.

Interesting where it goes.

Scott, as usual, this has been a fascinating discussion about you being bullied and your feelings, FOMA feelings about Bitcoin.

I'm just trying to assuage your insecurities, Cara.

I don't like the cut of that jib.

Anyway, that's the show.

Go to N.

I can't believe you just, you said that.

I'm going to keep, that's going to keep going for it.

It's going to be a bit for a while.

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

The link is also in your show notes, in the show notes here.

And read us out, Scott.

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

Ernie Indra Todd engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burroughs.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts.

Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend.

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, a democracy, one of the most beautiful regions in the world.

Unafraid of anybody over-indexing in the Olympics every four years because they're amazing athletes.

Go, Go, Australia!

Boom!