Media consolidations, Snapchat's TikTok competitor, and Joanna Coles on retail during the pandemic

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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.

Scott, we have a lot to talk about, but I was up all night because my son drove back from college, which makes him like typhoid Mary of our house for Thanksgiving.

So I sent him right to testing, right to testing.

But he drove with a bunch of other kids.

It feels very COVID-y to me.

So he drove with a bunch of kids in an enclosed car with the windows up,

singing to their favorite cheap trick album.

One never knows what happened along that road trip.

Let me just tell you that I immediately sent him and he's down in the basement.

I throw food down there.

He's staying down there until we get the results.

And then I may keep him there for a few more days.

That's what we're doing.

And what kind of do you, what, what infrastructure,

I mean, by the way, testing, I mean, there's so many, so many second-order effects here, but I'm curious how you got them tested because supposedly testing has advanced or escalated the adoption.

And I've always been a big fan of this channel of urgent care.

Well, yeah, I didn't do the fast one.

I didn't do the immediate one.

I did one that takes 24 hours.

You have to pay for it.

It's place, it's a really interesting little company called Same Day Testing.

It's not really the same day.

And your insurance will pay for it if it takes 72 hours and then 24 hours if you pay $195.

See, that fucking makes no sense.

Okay, so insurance, again, trading off short-term costs for long-term costs.

Right.

That's the only way you prevent the spread of this thing and massive health care costs.

Anyway, I'm sorry.

Anyway, you have to pay more.

How is the young man?

He's fine.

He's down in the basement.

I saw him from a distance.

I make him more.

He's not allowed upstairs.

He's like, I have this basement that has a door and it has a back door.

And so he can go in and out.

And I literally stayed up all last night.

I didn't know he was coming so quickly because he decided to do a night drive kind of thing.

And so I

put new rugs down.

I left him all the towels.

I stocked his refrigerator.

So I was up until like three in the morning fixing for my COVID-caring son.

He's not, he doesn't have COVID, but still, it's like we have to figure everything out.

And then my mom's coming.

It's really quite, I was just thinking the amount of time I'm spending making sure people are tested and then into cars.

And then it's just crazy.

It really is.

Figuring out a bubble, figuring out when people get tested, if they should be tested again.

Yep.

And then Amanda went away to see her family.

She did all the testing and everything else.

And then she's, when she's coming back, she's going to have to quarantine for, like, she's going to have to stay one place and I'm going to stay another.

But it's really quite, it's just a lot of time.

Let me just tell you, it's a lot of time.

It's a lot.

It's almost as if we're in a pandemic.

I know.

It's really amazing and how hard it is to navigate.

I finally found this place that you can pay for.

And then it's, you know, just the lines around the block here in D.C.

It's just, and I'm smart.

And it's like, oh my God, for people who are, this could be a disaster this Thanksgiving for a lot of people.

Anyway, in any case, COVID son is staying in the basement until further notice.

Well, the good news is that one of the things that COVID has done in terms of it being an accelerant is there was a trend, and it's an unfortunate trend, largely driven by the fact that for the first time in our nation's history, kids at the age of 30 are not doing as well as their parents were at the age of 30.

Think about that.

That is really kind of ground zero of this dissatisfaction, I think, with our society.

When you look up and you think, I'm not doing as well as my mom or dad, it's incredibly upsetting.

And then it's equally upsetting for the parents to look down because they feel as if they have not checked that box substantially.

Though, his parents were very, he was my one son, my younger son, was like, my parents are too productive.

Like, we're too, like, he doesn't want to keep up.

We're all good.

I wasn't talking, in this instance, I wasn't talking specifically about the Swisher family of over 15 years.

I feel my kids are.

What I was talking about, one of the trends, back to me.

Yes.

Thank you.

And the insight that everyone comes here for.

Yes.

Go ahead.

Okay, so a big trend in our society was that more and more kids, especially young men, were moving back home after college or before college.

Do you realize now, now, there are more people between the age of 18 and 30 living with their parents and living on their own?

Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's really, I think that's really upsetting.

Yeah.

Well, back to me.

He's going to stay here till the January 21st.

He's not coming.

He's not going back for the two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Oh, yeah, that makes no sense.

And by the way, the schools are expecting that.

We know that's happening.

Yeah.

So anyway, so he's going to be with me for a while.

That's why we're doing all this basement testing thing.

Anyway, speaking of which, you you have a book coming out.

We're going to devote the entire thing to you.

Well, thank you.

No, let's talk more about

one of your kids maybe having COVID.

You know what?

By the way, everyone's kid maybe having COVID.

We started last week's show talking about your penis excessively.

So I'm going to

have to do my children's.

First two purchasers of the book.

Signed copy for Big Ed and the Twins.

Okay, listen.

Post-Corona crisis to opportunity.

So that's kind of positivity.

It's coming out this week.

Everybody buy it.

We're going to talk about it full show on Thursday.

You're going to go through it.

By the way, by the way, it's dropping tomorrow, and this is very exciting.

I'm number two in hot new releases in economics.

But you know who's number one?

Who?

Well, who would be the worst person to go up to

on Amazon in a book release?

I don't know.

Jeff fucking Bezos is number one.

He has a book coming out the same day as me.

Thanks, Jeff.

But it's totally unfair.

It's coming out in economics where my book is coming out.

Shouldn't it come out in amateur photography, Kara?

Shouldn't it come out in amateur photography?

Do you know?

Seriously, that's what I have to do.

Bezos.

My book comes out.

Bezos.

He's going to keep topping you, and he's going to keep dropping.

He's going to be testing or whatever.

It should so be called Feel My Midlife Crisis.

That's what that means.

Last time I wrote a book, I was on Amazon.

I was number two on the whole thing because it was so small.

The thing was so small, but you know, it was ahead of me?

What's that?

Sugar Busters.

What's that?

I don't know.

It was a book called Sugar Busters, and I could never top Sugar Busters.

You're going to have to live with this.

Jeff Bezos will top you.

It's a better person to be topped than by Sugar Busters.

God, fucking top.

Jeff Bezos.

Seriously.

That's it.

All right.

Speaking of topping people, the new Wonder Woman movie will be released both in theaters on Christmas Day and available on stream on HBO Max.

I'm very excited.

I have HBO Max.

What does this say about Hollywood releases?

They had to.

It was just sitting there.

This is a big deal.

Yeah.

This is a big deal.

Explain the big dealness of it.

Well, if you think about it, theaters had an incredibly important role.

They were the sugar high right out of the gates.

You could get, and it's kind of ruined everything because everything's about guys in tights running around.

And I think that's created a huge opening for streaming video.

But effectively, they had a stranglehold.

Well, for the first eight weeks, they had a mandatory window where you couldn't be in home.

And the pandemic is not only are they closed, but there's some question about people are ever returning.

And AT ⁇ T Warner has decided they're taking a film that the sequel is.

It was a big movie theater movie.

700 million.

This one could do a billion.

And they've said it, all right.

And there's a lot of lessons in here.

Not only the transformation, the first order effect is obviously movie theaters are, I don't know, what's the term, fucked.

We know that, right?

We know that.

Some of the second order effects that we're not focusing on are society, from a societal standpoint, all the places where we used to run into people who maybe didn't look, smell, or feel like us, different economic class, which is really important for America, malls, theaters,

are going away.

We're becoming more and more segregated.

And that's a really terrible thing.

That's a trend.

I haven't been in a mall in forever.

But

in addition, I think CEOs are getting the memo, and that is revenues are not created equally.

If you think think about all the money and all the shareholder value that's being driven by streaming video platforms, whether it's Amazon Prime, Apple, Prime Video, Apple TV Plus, Netflix, the revenues they're fighting over is actually about a third of the revenues of the EBITDA, anyways, that the cable bundle produces.

But the marketplace says not all revenues are created equally.

And one of the things I do when I'm talking to a CEO is I say, okay, keep in mind, you have so much pressure on you to deliver certain expectations around EBITDA, and that's what they're totally focused on.

But are you studying to the wrong test?

Because what AT ⁇ T and Warner have definitely decided is that if they can drive another one or 2 million signups for HBO Max at $15 a month, $180, $180 million in recurring revenue, that's worth a billion to $2 billion in shareholder value.

Even if they lose $500 million of that billion they would get by keeping it exclusive in theaters.

Yeah, and they couldn't wait, right?

Like they couldn't wait this thing until next summer.

Everything's going to be cheap.

It's delayed.

I know.

I would like to to say this one I was really excited to see.

And the Top Gun one, there's the James Bond movie.

I think that's still dependent on.

But you know why this has happened?

Because Tenet, they decided to go into theaters with Tenet and it didn't work.

It didn't work.

Yeah.

And Pixar is taking a lead here and it's releasing their latest on Christmas Day.

I'm totally watching one of them.

That's what I'm doing Christmas Day, watching one of them.

Yeah.

And it could drive.

I bought Mulan.

Didn't love Mulver.

There's so many models here.

There's a hybrid concurrent release, which AT ⁇ T is doing.

There's exclusive to the release.

And think about this.

Think about what an advantage.

I mean, it's just so shocking.

AT ⁇ T had so many advantages.

One, they came into streaming video about the time broadband was really escalating because nobody thought you could even stream a movie, a movie at home for a large population.

In addition,

none of their competitors were offering that quality of movies in home because they were all focused on running it through the sugar hive of theaters first.

I mean,

this is actually a really big deal.

And then what do you do with all these, What do you do with all this real estate?

Do

basically movie theaters.

Not just movie theaters, so many things, so many offices.

I mean, go down to any downtown, like downtown, there's New York is like downtown everywhere.

There's like people live everywhere, but in

the heart of downtowns like Washington, just nobody.

Like when you go down there, nobody.

And you wonder like what they're going to do with all the real estate, what commercial estate is going to do.

What mall malls have already been on the dying end.

There's been a million stories about the end of malls and everything.

But it's really quite,

it's a whole reset.

And I'm, I, you know, I thought about buying, like the home stuff, I thought about buying a better television this week, like a really good one, a big one.

And so just to just give it in.

And there are so many changes economically and societally about what happens to a new world post-corona.

Someone should write a book about this.

Yes,

we will talk about it next week.

We'll talk about it Thursday.

There are Thanksgiving togetherness.

We're not leaving each other even on Thanksgiving because we love each other.

I like to think we're spending it with our family, Karen.

Well, very briefly,

we will talk about Joe Biden a little bit next week about who he's picking.

He's picking Anthony Blinken and Secretary of State.

Literally, it was like

all these people that look very different from each other.

It wasn't like a series of, he happens to be a white guy, but there's this cabinet so far looks pretty diverse and interesting.

Now, he has to pick his treasury secretary, which is going to come up.

And apparently, it's going to be accepted by all elements of the Democrat.

Who, who?

I'll give you some hints.

Janet Yellen, I heard.

Oh, 100%.

Oh, you stole my thunder.

Sorry.

One best instructor twice at the High School of Business.

Right.

Right.

One has won best instructor.

You don't realize how hard that I realize it.

You know how many times I've won best instructor?

Yeah.

How many times?

One, two, three.

None.

I've never won it, Kiera.

I've never won.

Having interviewed her, she does not take personal.

She is one tough coach.

She is lock on.

Lock on.

I felt so stupid when I was there.

She is going to be, she is going to be Treasury Secretary, professor janet yellen this woman is incredible yeah thoughtful reasonable has respect from both sides of the aisle yeah does not take it does not take outside pressure just looks at the data she really does fantastic she would be great too i really enjoyed it but i felt really stupid but speaking of really stupid let's talk some moves in media let's get on to big stories

BuzzFeed announced they bought the Huffington Post last week.

As you know, BuzzFeed is expected to break even this year after cutting costs by 30 million dollars according to the wall street journal buzzfeed picked up the company from verizon another one of those deals like we talked about last week at t shedding itself of the deals they made this was under tim uh armstrong if you recall uh both buzzfeed and the huffing and post are unionized meanwhile vox's founder and editor-in-chief ezra klein uh is the latest of the blog founders to announce he's headed to the new york times as a columnist he's also going to do a podcast sounds like someone we know um the new york times now employs the former editors-in-chiefs of vox buzzfeed news Gizmodo, Fusion, the All, and Gawker.

So Scott, what is happening here?

This is also a big deal because the market over time responds to we're a capitalist society.

Everyone wants a broader set of selection mates.

They want the kids to have more opportunity.

They want a party in St.

Bart.

So compensation drives all behavior in corporate America.

Compensation is largely driven by the equity value of the company.

So basically, strategies are largely cats chasing this red dot of where they think they can get the highest multiple multiple on their revenues.

And an example of this is everybody putting dot-com at the end of their company and figuring out that $1 of e-commerce revenue was equal, at least for a while, to 10 of terrestrial revenue.

And everybody made the spin, not everybody, a lot of people made the mistake of thinking that

the media companies that were the new guys, right, the huff posts, the buzzfeeds, were worth a lot more.

A lot of investment capital has just been evaporated there.

What they failed to realize is that arbitrage and the disparity between low multiples and high multiples isn't on the medium any longer.

It's on the business model specifically, specifically.

And this is a proxy, a forward-looking indicator of who survives and who doesn't in media.

It's not old versus new.

It's one thing.

It's the percentage of revenue you are getting from subscription.

Yep.

You know who's one of the most bulletproof, and this is the segue into your company or into this next story.

You know who is the most bulletproof media company in the world right now, other than Netflix, which gets 100% of the revenue from subscription?

New York Times.

Gangster, exactly right, Kara, 68% of the revenue from subscription.

You think I went over there?

And by the way, what are they doing with all that cheap capital?

They're coming in and they're buying the editor-in-chief of all those quote-unquote new, shiny, sexy digital companies who, by the way, have shitty business models because they're ad-based.

They're ad-based.

It's not old versus new.

It's whether you're advertising-based or you're subscription-based.

Full stop.

Well, there you go.

What do you think about Verizon, which has deep pockets, getting rid of Huffington Post?

That was a big deal.

Remember, it was the Yahoo was involved.

I wrote about it.

I spent so many hours of my life wasted, obviously, at this point, writing about all these different consolidations among these telcos, not just Verizon, but Verizon bought

Yahoo,

AOL, yeah.

AOL.

Yeah, but there's a big difference.

Okay.

So

and then they bought Huffington Post as part of that.

I broke that story, actually.

But Verizon,

but Verizon, their adventures in media and failed attempts to differentiate differentiate is a $5 billion mistake.

I think they bought Yahoo AO for around $5 billion.

ATT's adventures in media was a $110 billion mistake.

So, quite frankly, they said Yahoo!

Coming like Verizon, that's like, you know, like

three weeks of EBITDA.

It doesn't matter.

They look at it and they say, okay, sell it.

Who cares?

It's a distraction.

When ATT has to sell or spend or do something funky with

everything from Turner to TBS to HBO to CNN.

They're going to have to be very elegant about how they communicate that and be very thoughtful around it.

The decision to sell HuffPo was literally on, I don't know, I forget who the CEO of Verizon, on his way home from the Hamptons, he's like, no, fuck it, I'm sick of this shit, just sell it.

That's about how long that took.

Yeah, the revenue apparently dropped off the, it wasn't doing badly, actually, given how big it is and how many, it wasn't doing badly, but I think the revenue dropped off the face of the earth.

But ad-supported digital platforms right now, like HuffPo and BuzzFeed are now officially distressed assets.

And that is the strategy moving forward will be consolidation and cost cutting.

They're going to go off their toes, onto their heels.

By the way, it might be a good place to make money.

I was, again, I keep talking about the yellow pages business, but if companies are valued at two to three times EBITDA, you can go in and you can cut costs faster than declining revenues.

And that's what's happening here.

That asset class is now officially a distressed asset class.

It's going to be about, they took HuffPo and they took BuzzFeed and they said, okay, the two CFOs,

one of you gets voted off the island.

They're going to cut costs.

Yeah, they are.

Consolidate.

You're no longer running sports.

The editor there, you're running sports and lifestyles or whatever.

And they'll start acquiring other little guys that don't have a chance in hell.

But that class now, non-or ad supported.

What do you do?

What would you do?

Wait, first of all, what do you do then if you are an ad supporter?

They just don't exist?

Because look how many people they've thrown off, the really good people, including myself.

I'm not here with a message of hope.

I think it's an infinitely American thing that whenever these boards or companies invite me in to talk to them, they think for sure I'm going to come with ideas and answers about a great future.

And the reality is something like BuzzFeed or HuffPo or Refinery 29,

they don't have, they're like single title publishing in the magazine business.

That is being a pilot

on, you know, on Spirit Airways.

Your days are, it's just, not even Spirit Airways, TWA.

It may have been great for a while.

Your days are numbered.

And those companies really only have one choice, and that is they probably don't have the capital.

I mean, my initial go-to is go to a Rundle or subscription.

They don't have the capital to offer anything that compelling.

So what they have to do is get a private equity-backed sponsor and consolidate and bulk up and cut costs.

And then what do you do when you bulk up?

Well, you have, you basically have one sales team selling.

Because they've tried that.

Remember Fusion?

There was a whole bunch of those going on.

But I'll give you you an example.

Our company, Vox, when they bulk up with New York Magazine, they've got a much bigger inventory to sell.

They've got more revenues to spread across the fixed cost base.

That's the right strategy.

So what's next?

What is the next one among these companies?

I don't know.

That's a good question.

I think the next story, and I realize it's sensitive.

So

you're Jonah Peretti.

What do you do next?

And you're Jim Bankoff.

What do you do next?

Let's give him free advice, our owner, Pivot.

Well, realistically, if you're just totally totally selfish, you find one of these SPACs that is cheap.

I don't want to call it stupid money, but there are so many SPACs right there, you sell those SPAC.

Yeah.

Because the market is so horny.

It's the feces move.

Like, throw feces at tourists to the Unicorn Zoo, specifically,

you know, which is kind of the ultimate core confidence of everybody.

Let's create momentum.

Let's get a higher valuation.

Let's get into the public markets.

Sell, sell, sell, and let the public markets figure out if this shit works.

And some CEO's got to work 110 hours a week, unless, of course, you have a beard and a nose ring and then you work 20 hours a week.

But another story.

So

they have to bulk up.

100% they have to bulk up.

They have to either occupy niches and get a higher CPM.

I mean,

we're very good at turning everything back to us.

We get fantastic revenues on Pivot because we appeal to basically white tech guys and advertisers love that.

They love, because they generally have influence, a lot of budget.

But yeah, they either have to go, the specific crowds out of the general, they have to go very very niche, or they have to bulk up.

But in the short term, that's a business strategy, a financial strategy, quite frankly, is to return the calls of all these SPACs that are floating around trying to find a company.

Bank off SPAC.

I know some SPAC people.

We know a thing or two about SPACs.

Spack it up.

Banks back.

Bank SPAC.

Banks back.

Bank back.

Wait.

Bank off, bank off, SPACs, back off, bank.

Oh, that sounds dirty at this point.

All right, so

though you never ask me questions, I will ask myself a question because it's risking your body.

I'm sorry.

That was rude to me as usual.

So you are ground zero for this.

And I was literally avoiding it because I didn't want to be in a comfortable spot.

Early.

I was early, as usual.

I'm always early.

But everybody's following you.

But this goes back to the city.

I also sold early because I saw, so, you know what I mean?

The New York Times, everyone says, what's happening here?

You know what's happening here?

The New York Times is finally paying up.

The New York Times is clearly saying, hey, Ezra, hey, Kara, here's some real cabbage and real opportunity and scale and reach and infrastructure.

And they have to, by the way, it's theirs to lose in the podcast space.

That's what I told them.

I'm like, either let Spotify do it or you can own it.

Like, don't let another pitch go by.

This is the one you can win in.

This is one you can really win in and

own in a really significant way.

So that was my

well, just, I mean, okay, so just adventures in the New York Times.

In 2002, and I know this painfully, New York Times stock was at 55.

It was.

An activist came in and put a crazy professor on the board.

In 2008, we bought stock at 18, and within 13 months, the stock was at 3.5,

$3.50.

Great recession had something to do with that.

And now it's at?

And it's 40s again?

Yeah.

So they now have the capital.

They're off their heels, onto their toes.

It's interesting that they're going after clearly.

The other learning here, and I'm sorry, I totally interrupted you, but one of the first observations I made as a- Sound like right in the middle of it.

Why ask me?

But go ahead.

One of the observations.

I actually did it two years ago, but okay, go ahead.

I'm in the basement.

Anyways, one of the things we're going to see you in the basement.

We'll come back.

I promise we'll come back to Adventures and Carrou Swisher's career.

I'm just telling you, I was there.

I'm in the middle of this.

I did all these things, but go ahead.

You tell me.

Okay, so one of the first observations I made as a business person was I was hired to do, to build and do the strategy for William Sonoma's internet, built their first website.

Pat Connolly, totally visionary, CMO, got into the internet before any specialty retailer.

Now, more than 50% of William Sonoma's revenue is done through e-commerce.

Arguably, it's one of the highest margin e-commerce companies in the world.

Anyway, anyway, one of the things that

Howard Lester told me, the CEO, and Pat, is that the moment we can get someone to purchase items from William Sonoma through more than one channel,

that person becomes the retention is greater, the lifetime value skyrockets.

The moment we can get someone to buy in the catalog and in the store, or in the store and on the website, a multi-channel buyer.

And here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

This is going to get to the next point.

You're going to land this media airplane soon.

Go ahead.

Here's the point.

The New York Times and Spotify and everybody else is going to realize that people, IP creators that in the result of their IP creates revenue is worth X.

But IP creators such as Kara Swisher that write and do podcasts are multi-channel media properties are worth substantially more.

And so if you notice all the big money, all the recruiting of individuals, who's it going to?

It's going after people who are multi-channel, who understand how to communicate their ideas and their ideas through multiple channels.

Yes, indeed.

I did see this early.

But I'm not an employee of the New York Times, interestingly.

People think I am, but you know, they hired Ezra, they hired Ben Smith and all the others.

I am not.

Don't try and tame the cat.

I decline to.

I have a

strategy around it.

The cat will not be caged.

I don't want to be caged.

She needs to run.

Don't stand too close to your flame.

You'll be caged.

Let me just say they were totally.

Initially, they were reticent because they want to sort of have you as an employee.

But then they were very...

I explained my piece to them and they liked it.

And we're making great content now.

So you can do this a lot of different ways, people in media.

That's all I have to say.

You can do it in different ways.

You can be a little more safety by being an employee, but you also can be, you can, a lot of these companies are now very open to doing things in fresh new ways, which I really appreciate.

And they really are.

I have to say, yeah, when you have huge leverage like YouTube, they're incredibly open to people.

Well, what do you want?

They're a lot of people.

Have you noticed how nice there lately to us at Vox now that we're making a shit ton of money?

You're so interesting.

Let's grab drinks.

Where's my pies?

Yeah, they do that with you.

They never call me.

In any case,

we are the

cat bird seat.

We are the cat bird seat, you and me.

And unfortunately, it's with you, but here we are.

Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

We get back, speaking of

people that are interesting to talk to and have a lot of different ways to can sing, dance, and act at the same time.

We'll be back to talk with our friend of Pivot, Joanna Cole, talk about shopping.

She's also on the board of Snapchat, which has been trying to keep up with TikTok, and she has involved in a SPAC.

So she is a perfect guest for today when we get back.

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Scott, we're back.

We have to do this very quickly because Joanne is coming very soon.

Snapchat is launching a TikTok competitor called Spotlight.

Snapchat says it'll divvy up a million dollars between the most popular creators on the app per day through the end of 2020.

Kind of interesting way.

The app is launching in 11 countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, and Australia.

Unlike TikTok, though there'll be no public comment section, profiles will be private by default.

That is, TikTok does have comments, although nobody really uses those as much.

So, what do you think?

What do you think about this?

Snapchat's actually copying something for the first time.

It usually gets copied from by Facebook.

So what do you think about this?

I'm excited, but I think it's not about,

I think the, the secret sauce here is the algorithm.

So I'm obsessed with

TikTok.

I just can't get over it.

Well, I just think it's so,

A, I like the videos and then I figure out, oh my God, I'm interested in this.

I'm like, I am interested in this.

How did they know that before I did?

In my view, Snapchat, I'm sorry, TikTok is really the first example.

Other than when I get to episode four of The Queen's Gambit and Netflix figures out that I should start watching episode five and 3-2-1, the best, the most obvious means of AI changing my life, quite frankly, is TikTok.

I just think it's incredible given the volume of stuff that they've managed to zero in on this.

I enjoy watching chiropractors adjust people's necks.

Who would have known that?

That's who would would have known that?

But TikTok knows it.

That's interesting.

TikTok knows it.

Why don't I get those?

That's interesting.

And here's what, you know, what Reels does?

Reels just goes, my sense of Facebook is it just goes more extreme.

Like I watch, I like watching people talk about Black Lives Matter that are almost naked, like really hot men and women who are almost naked talking about social issues.

You do that on Facebook?

No, I do it on, I do it, I guess, well, it's not, I don't do it.

It's done to me.

They decide I'm interested in watching this hot guy without a shirt talk about Black Lives Matter.

It's done on Facebook.

But anyways, Reels or Facebook, the algorithm is good.

It just goes dirtier or it goes more extreme.

I mean, that's what they do, right?

They're like, oh, you like politics?

Anyway, I don't find Instagram delightful anymore.

I don't.

I don't like it.

That's interesting.

I will watch TikTok for hours and I will not

read Instagram.

Yes, I will.

I don't column on it.

You don't read, you do not read my work in the New York Times.

Months, months and months and months.

Did you not read my work?

I talked about the delights of algorithms,

the entertainment, the emphasis of media on social media, the algorithm.

And then I said I use a burner phone because the Chinese, because Chinese.

That's incredible.

I have to tell you, I love it.

I sit there and just like, I get tie-dye, but you get like chiropractor.

I would like that.

Why don't I get that?

And I get snakes eating small animals.

Oh, I don't get that.

Yeah, you get that.

You get tie-dye and bake and cooking.

Oh, see, yeah, we get much different things.

I would like to get a chiropractor.

How do I get a chiropractor?

Send me a link and then I'll start watching chiropractor ones and I'll get more.

I would like to get that.

I don't think you need to see what I'm saying.

I doubt it.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

No.

No.

You know, it doesn't go that dirty ever for me.

That's another thing that I like.

It doesn't go extreme.

It doesn't go dirty.

It goes like very PG-13.

Let's pretend you're interested in this issue, but the person talking about it forgot to put on her bra.

Okay.

Okay.

It's very good, though.

Let's talk about Snapchat.

What is their unique contribution to this?

Well,

they're fantastic in terms of product.

They're fantastic in terms of design.

They've basically been Facebook's product development department for the last 10 years.

That's a good opportunity now that TikTok's on its heels.

I don't, and again, it might be that it's like, you know, the functional families are the ones you don't know.

I find that AI, I assume AI takes deep, scary

sense

research, algorithms, investment.

I mean, I don't understand how they do it.

And I assume that that is a real barrier of entry.

And I wonder if Snap has the technical chops, the resources, the capital to come up.

Because if Facebook can't figure out an algorithm, I've been on Reels.

It keeps me engaged for like 30 30 seconds, I'm done.

I gotta tell you,

Facebook is the least entertaining group of people ever.

Let us just say, they are the least.

They're just like, they couldn't create anything creative if their life depended on it.

I'm sorry.

They just can't.

They can make nice lists and create, you know, dumb groups where people talk about Antifa coming to their town, but nothing interesting.

I always find things interesting on Snapchat.

Even, you know, I'm on it right now.

I have to look at it to see how it's going there.

But I think the interesting paying these people is smart.

People did that.

YouTube did that.

Other people have tried to do that to pull people off of YouTube.

I think, you know, getting some of these popular creators to come over there and try it.

Why not?

Why not?

Why not?

You know, it's a good idea.

I think we'll see how it goes.

I think they have a group of people that are huge fans.

Like my kids use them almost exclusively.

They're way off of Instagram now, and they used to be much more so.

But I think Instagram is popular with teenagers for sure.

But I think they've stuck with Snapchat.

And the more you can offer them, the better it is.

And I think they will watch these things, things, especially my younger son, who's 15.

But the lesson to any consumer company, any individual who's in the business of IP, any professor, I've been talking to my colleagues about this.

You are not going to be able to create the level of awareness for five, 10 times the amount of investment you need right now on TikTok that it'll take in two or three years.

This is Instagram in the early days.

You're going to look back.

You know, when we, when I first launched Red Envelope, you could buy Mother's Day gift, a keyword on Google for 10 cents.

Within three years, it was like $1.80.

Yeah.

This will be, you will look back and think, why weren't we doing everything?

Well, now they did have some trouble with some other stuff, as you recall.

They've tried a whole bunch of this.

Remember, they had the whole creator area and it didn't work.

And so I do think they do have issues that they don't always get everything right for sure.

They don't.

Well, yeah, who does?

I know, but they've tried a bunch of this media stuff and moved it around.

I think a lot of it was where it was,

where it was placed, you know, know, where it was put on the thing.

The things my kids complained about when they were in, I think it was Discover, I guess.

I can't remember what everything was called, but when they did that, my kids were more annoyed at where they put it rather than the thing.

Like, they messed up this, and why do you have to go over here?

Here, it was all about logistics because they were used to using it as a utility for communications, and it got in their way.

And so, that was interesting.

And then they just were doing

the issue

for Snapchat, I think, and I'm going to be talking to Evan Spiegel soon about it,

is

people, even if they do it well, and I thought a lot of their Discover stuff, I think it's called Discover,

was

well done.

I think people come there to communicate.

I don't think they come there to be entertained.

And so that's really how I wonder how well it's going to do.

You like Evan.

I do.

I do.

I did.

You know, he and I, the first meeting, several years, we had a very testy relationship.

And one time he had a lunch where he just yelled at me in Los Angeles.

The food was delicious, but he just yelled at me.

And,

but he has evolved.

That's what I would say.

That's an image.

Yeah, I know.

He was just yelling at me over this beautiful.

It was down in not Santa Monica, the next Venice Beach.

It was so

whatever.

Uh,

an Abbot Kinney.

And it was, uh, it was a delightfully delicious lunch, but he yelled at me.

It was like a teenager yelling at me.

I was like, I don't really feel like listening to you, Evan.

Um, but he has evolved, and I like that about him.

He's an evolved, he's evolved.

He's added a lot more women to the thing.

They definitely had some culture.

Young, dark, and lovely guys.

Dark and lovely.

He's blonde.

He looks like a California surfer.

What are you talking about?

He's not even,

I'm a little bit country.

You're a little bit hetero.

You love those young dudes with the dude.

I do not.

I do not.

Oh, my God.

I still love those guys.

I so don't.

You're so hot for daddy as long as daddy is young with dark hair.

He doesn't have dark hair.

He has blonde hair.

You're completely wrong, but he has hair unlike you, which is a very different style.

He looks like

he should be in a boy band.

He does not have his light hair.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

On a visual media platform who's he kidding he's married to a supermodel

and he's the sullen lead of a boy band he is not

married to a superman stop pretending to be

a risk eagle in any case he i i i never count him out in terms of creativity and that's what i like about him um because he's creative i and i i was a very early and loud critic of snap i thought they were going to get absolutely run over by Facebook and I was wrong.

Yeah, they're doing really good.

I like when you say you're wrong.

I think that's nice.

Well, speaking of which,

speaking of which, someone who's on the board of Snapchat and a friend of ours is going to be coming on.

So let's bring on friend of Pivot, Joanna Coles, is a tech and media entrepreneur and former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine.

But here on Pivot, she is lovingly known as the Queen Bee.

Joanna.

Joanna, welcome to Pivot.

We were just talking about Snapchat upon which you are on the board.

They're talking about their new spotlight.

Would you care to comment?

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm very, very pleased with the impact it's had on the stock price.

We're very excited about it.

It's such an innovative company.

I've been on the board now for five years, and it's just one thing after another.

And if there's any fault, I would say with Snap, it's not that, well, it's that we haven't always been brilliant at telling people about all our innovations, and now we're getting much better at it.

So, Spotlight is exciting.

So, what is it different?

How do you conceive it?

Because Snapchat usually gets copied from this, it's a TikTok

thing.

Well, ripoff is what Scott does.

I mean, you know, Snap was actually doing this a long time ago and the whole sort of notion of it.

We're friends.

We're friends.

Come on.

Oh, yes.

Just so you know, Kara, I have guest speakers come to my class, 280 kids on Tuesday night.

And you know who Joanna was good enough to come on and be a guest speaker.

And you know who's the most popular speaker of the entire semester?

Joanna.

Andrew Yang.

But number two was Joanna.

The students absolutely love.

Anyways, back to the pivot.

Okay, so.

Do you know, Scott, I will just say I was walking down Mercer Street the other day and someone shouted at me and it was from

one of your students who said how much she loved your class.

And I was like, are you sure?

And she was emphatic.

She was emphatic that she enjoyed your class.

I've been voted most innovative.

Anyways,

ask a question.

Okay, okay.

So

10 years ago, not even

five years ago, if not 10 years ago, or 10 years ago, if not five years ago, Joanna Coles was at the epicenter of printed magazines and fashion.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say those were not great,

great carts to attach your horse to.

I mean, great horses to attach your cart to.

Do you mean wagons to hitch my ride to?

There you go.

Whatever.

The wrong rocket fuel, the wrong horse to ride, whatever it is.

And now you're kind of in ground zero of not only media, Snap, but you're also on the board of a hardware company, Sonos, which is one of my favorite brands in the world.

You have, I don't want to say reinvented yourself because you've brought the same skills, but you clearly have an ability to see around the corner and see what's next and how to position yourself.

What do you see?

What do you see as kind of the next, the next thing or things?

In shopping too, in fashion or wherever.

Yeah, well, I will say,

I mean, magazines were in decline.

I got the last great years of them.

Obviously, it was managing an industry in decline and at the end I was the chief content officer for her so overseeing 300 magazines globally

and as fast as you could pull them into the digital era it was very hard obviously to keep up with the scale of something like Facebook or Google which as we know has sucked all the advertising out of these businesses but enormous fun to work there and you know you really came across very creative people and fashion is such an interesting thing to be involved in.

And I spend a lot of my time now thinking about the future of fashion online, the future of retail online.

Clearly, COVID has given us a glimpse into the future.

I think it's sped up or it's accelerated, as everybody's saying at the moment, shopping trends

probably by 10 years.

And that's what the head of Shopify was saying the other day.

And I think he's right.

And you see

all these...

I'm sorry, Go.

He got it from you.

He got it from you.

Thank you.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I'm a regular listener.

You're a lot of insecurity, Joanna.

Keep going.

Oh, they all are.

They all are, Cara.

Cara, you and I know.

You and I know that.

But

clearly, what's interesting about shopping is that for the most part, it's habit-driven.

And what COVID has been able to do is break those habits.

So, you know, you used to think of e-commerce in particular as sort of about one-off purchases.

Then it became about staples.

And now I think you're looking at real innovation around really high-value purchases.

So you think of something like open door, Carvana, people buying houses.

I was talking to someone the other day who'd moved from Brooklyn to LA, bought their house online, never seen it, got there, admitted it needed a bit more work than he'd anticipated.

But nevertheless, you see people are thinking of transacting in completely different ways now because of COVID.

Are you a fan of Open Door and Zillow?

Are you a fan of this iBuying trend?

Well, I'm a fan of anything that empowers the consumer and gives the consumer more context.

I think as a consumer, what you're trying to do is get value for money, get what you're after, and you need the context of the market.

And for the longest time, really, it was about realtors holding on to that context.

There just wasn't enough information out there.

And now as a consumer, you can complain that you're overwhelmed by information, but much better to have information to make a decision about what is going on in the neighborhood, what are the comparative prices, unbelievably impactful for consumers to have information like that.

So, I'm a big fan of them.

So,

what happens to retailers?

And also,

can we just have a moment about how miserable it is going to buy a car?

I mean, everybody talks about the experience of buying Tesla, whose stock I noticed had gone up again today.

But the way that you buy a Tesla is so much, sorry, Scott, is so much more,

it is so much,

it's so bad, the experience of buying a car when you go in.

You don't really know what you're trying to do.

You're trying to bargain.

Should you bargain?

Are they telling you the truth?

It's like this weird dance that neither of you know the steps to.

And the music is changing rhythm on you the whole time.

And so the ability to go to Carvana or just buy online and be very specific and have a price is so much easier.

What do you imagine they have to retail?

You know, I just interviewed Raj Chetty about how sort of people in affluent areas, all the stores there,

because rich people stay home and take care of themselves and get themselves deserted endlessly.

But what happens to the retail, the street-level analog?

This is also a trend.

You know, malls were dying and street life was better.

But what do you see happening to the world of retail and then the world of fashion?

What do they do?

Oh, it's a great question.

I mean,

I live downtown in New York and all the stores have been boarded up.

And even when they unboard them, which they did about a week ago, a lot of the storefronts are just completely empty.

And all sorts of stores are just saying, we're not coming back.

We're not coming back, partly to do with COVID, partly to do with the fact that we were looted.

And so

it's this eerie, sort of desolate sense of these storefronts that are open.

The buildings are often overvalued.

The realtors are greedy.

And it's really depressing.

And obviously there'll be some kind of pop-up

scenarios.

People come in and out for the holidays, but it's depressing.

And I think

the cities need to get together or the the local uh politicians need together with local business and realtors and figure it out what do you see for what do you do if you're in a retail or a fashion business right now if you're what are you hearing from your fashion friends Well, I think the fashion business, especially the luxury fashion business, has been incredibly slow to go online.

I mean, I remember talking to the CEO of Celine.

You know,

very senior executives at Prague are saying, well, never go online.

This is ridiculous.

No one's going to spend $2,000 on a bag online.

They were so late to the table.

So I think they are investing all their resources on going D to C, which is where clearly the best relationship with the customer is.

It's where you get data on the customer.

It's where you can stay in touch with them.

That's obviously the future for a lot of fashion.

And you can see Amazon.

I mean, last time I was on Pivot, we were discussing Amazon's move into the fashion space, but it's clear that that's where fashion, especially the more affluent brands,

you know, Paris, Milan, that's where they need to be spending their time.

And actually, I remember the CEO of Amani telling me that the most effective way for them to sell was to personally call their customers and say, hey, we know that you bought this skirt last season.

This season, we've got a shirt coming in that would go really well with it.

Now you can do that on text.

It's much cheaper, a much more efficient way to stay in touch.

And actually, as a customer, it's very useful to know that that's what they're doing.

And those customers are used to that now, that kind of behavior.

Correct.

like, they don't need to be champagne and dined and dragged in.

Or some of them do, but they weren't, they're not doing that right now.

Yeah, I mean, nobody's doing that right now.

Now, of course, there are some people that love that, but mainly you just want to know what have you got in?

Will it fit with the rest of my closet?

Can you give it me for less, or can I find it for less elsewhere?

Absolutely.

Good, Scott.

Fascinating.

So, by the way, you brought up absolutely my favorite accessory in the world, the Celine Pico Belt Bag.

In my view, best in the drum calfskin black.

Guys, take it from me and Joanna Coles.

You want to step up to the plate?

That's the gift, this holiday.

Joanna, I'm serious.

I love that bag.

I'm curious, what do you think of the Farfetch?

I think it was Artemis and Alibaba deal.

Well, what a clever deal for Farfetch.

I think it's a brilliant idea for them.

I mean, why wouldn't you do that if you were them?

And again, this is about how.

Do you know you two, you two insiders, Farfetch?

Well, Farfetch is a brilliant business where you can, or it's brilliant for the consumer in terms of if you're looking for something you can basically find it for uh the the cheapest price yeah okay uh which is again incredibly easy

right great great purveyors of artisanship and yeah i mean it's a whole world of shopping which now has alibaba's resources which will allow it to try and dominate the environment yeah yeah yeah yeah but but scott i came across a very interesting new um

app yesterday, which made me think about you and Red Door, which I know you always talk about.

The mind runs crazy about what's about to spill out of your mouth.

Go ahead.

Well, it's an interesting,

it's an interesting app that's called Goody.

And it's actually, it's a bit like Venmo for gifting, which is you can gift a real gift by text.

So someone gifted me a robe by text, right?

So I got a text saying, hey, someone's gifted you a robe and then i fill in the details of the robe that i want but even more importantly i fill in the address of where i want it to be sent and i think you know as you look down the barrel of holiday shopping this season and you think god everybody's moved everywhere you know so many people are not living where they were living this time last year and the bore of collecting people's actual addresses this way i can say hey i'm sending you a gift here's the gift you fill out where you want it to be sent you fill out the size you don't need to tell me you're an extra large through covid um you know here's the gift and i just thought what a great solution to holiday shopping it's sort of the red envelope of our time

go on

with more longevity i i loved red i bought from your red envelope

i needed you to buy i know i just couldn't buy enough i couldn't buy enough all right

another thing that you're on the cutting edge of is SPACs.

Explain what you're doing.

I couldn't believe that you were involved.

When Scott mentioned it, I was like, what?

Like, not that, you know, there's a lot of funny business in SPACs, but why are you in SPACs?

Well, I

think

that's

special purpose

acquisition companies.

Yeah, which enable high-growth companies to go public faster.

The traditional IPO process, as you know, is laborious and very distracting for a CEO and for senior management.

And it takes a long time.

And SPACs have been around for some time, they weren't sort of very highly thought of, but they've been growing.

And then this year, you've seen $60 billion worth of investment dollars move into SPACs.

You saw, I mean, you've mentioned on the show Bill Gurley's sort of

seminal essay on why he would never take a company public with a traditional IPO again after lemonade.

And the staff were left sort of high and dry because the bank has said, well, we're taking you to market at 27.

it ended at 69 yeah and the people that get screwed in that situation are the people who've been working there yeah and the companies for yeah exactly

exactly so there's much more discovery in a spec for the management team and it's cheaper and it's more efficient so it struck me as a very interesting thing to do i think there are a lot of companies in the sort of one to two billion dollar range in uh that are really disruptive in the beauty the health the fitness and the wellness space which is really where I'm looking, and in the subscription space.

And I do think that, you know, I'm looking for tech-enabled data-driven commerce that uses media and content to create communities that sort of push that flywheel of growth.

Quite a lot of jargon there, but I think you know what I'm trying to say.

And I just thought it would be really fun

to do one.

And oddly, that space is not really heavily crowded with SPACs.

There are a lot of SPACs out there, but many of them are looking for different things.

There's a lot in the electrical vehicle space.

There's a lot in the energy space.

There's a lot in the healthcare space.

But women make 80% of the household decisions, consumer decisions.

And I thought,

why not look for some companies in the consumer space?

So I'd love to do a lightning round with you.

So by the way, Joanna is one of my, I don't know, small group of...

Yodas that I turn to

when I need the straight skinny on a consumer company.

So I want to give you a bunch of consumer brands.

A baby Yoda or a grown-up Yoda.

There you go.

So the baby Yoda.

Have you been watching The Mandalorian, by the way?

It's genius.

The second, no.

It's genius.

Yes.

And you know what?

Sonos did a partnership with it, and I was so pleased.

I thought, what a smart thing to do, because we have these great sound bars for your TV.

Pedro Pascal, like a working sound.

I am doing The Crown last season, even though I didn't watch any of the other seasons.

The Crown's so good, Diana.

Now I'm going back and watching the other seasons, which I never did.

Yeah, well, Helena Bonham Carter is an absolute triumph.

The episode where Margaret Thatcher goes to stay at Balmoral with the royal family,

you are so good because it captures this awful nuance at the heart of Britain about the class system and how, you know,

Princess Margaret was able to patronise Margaret Thatcher, who'd done this astonishing feat of coming from a grocer's daughter to be the first female prime minister.

And there was Princess Margaret in her kilts, you know, swelling to her full bosom-y size and dismissing the first female prime minister.

Yeah, it was quite

wild.

All right, answer is Scott's question.

Such a good show.

Yes.

All right, Scott's question.

So I'm going to give you some brands, and I just, before you have a chance to be filtered and think I'm, you know, I'm a big deal on a bunch of boards, I just want to hear just three, five seconds.

Well, first of all, can I just say I don't ever think I'm a big dealer?

Here we go.

Okay, yeah.

Enough of the British accent describing how wonderful the crown is, for God's sakes.

Tiger King.

Anyway, so innovative.

Innovative.

All right.

Just give me your gut reactions here.

Rent the Runway.

Can we just talk about it?

Can we just talk?

I get you two on a podcast.

Good.

I get this at home.

I don't need this here.

All right.

Anyways.

I just get this from your children at home.

What do you want to say?

What did you say?

What was the brand?

Rent the Runway.

I love Rent the Runway.

I think Rent the Runway.

I don't know why everybody's going around saying the Rent the Runway is over.

I don't think it's over at all.

I think it's been hit by a really bad

course because of COVID.

Where is it in a year?

You think it's back stronger than ever?

Goes sideways, gets acquired?

What do you think?

No,

not in a year.

I don't think in a year.

I think it will take longer to bounce back than that.

But I hope she holds on to it.

And I hope she, I would think that in two to three years, that thing will have bounced back.

All I can tell you is that I have walked into many different kinds of offices, and the mail rooms are just full of those navy blue bags.

Their monthly rental for office wear was one of the best things to happen happen to fashion.

Truly disruptive, truly disruptive.

I mean, it's possible that someone else will come out with the same thing, but I think Jen Hyman is brilliant.

All right, next.

Warby Parker.

I would say my jury's slightly out on Warby Parker.

I know they have very high

ideas for valuation.

I don't know what the motives for Warby Parker.

Other people can do it.

Glossier.

I like Glossier very much.

I think the way they've incorporated their community is super smart.

I

also like the fact they really listen to the consumer.

And one of the great things about Glossier is the way the community goes off and does its own thing.

So I don't know if you've watched Glossier Boyfriends, which is a feed of just bored but quite hot-looking guys sitting around or standing around as their girlfriends.

But you had a pause.

What was your pause?

You had a pause.

I heard a pause.

Well, my pause is that I think it's hard for single-brand

makeup companies.

I think it's good to have more brands.

I think they've got permission to do that.

But, you know, I'm sure they'll get acquired or they'll go public.

Probably with a SPAC, actually.

Yeah, maybe, maybe with a SPAC.

I agree with you on away.

I don't understand why.

I mean, I like the product,

but I think

I don't understand why it's the sort of, you know, thought of as a tech company it's just a luggage company it's like casper it's got the same issues you don't buy that many suitcases and um

what i do notice is that the people who have them feel very tribal they look at other people and sort of there's a slight nod of their head or a kind of a semi-wink not a full wink a little wink of recognition that this is someone who's not using

um who's not using a to me bag right because up until now it had always been about the black zip-up up to me bag which

one sky they're not all douches they're not all douches to me they're gonna defend two me luggage but but it's very corporate i don't want a to me bag because it's too corporate so i'll wait i know a luggage joanna owns and i don't even know what luggage you so own a ramoa am i right or am i right In my dreams, actually, I do own several away bags

because I want to indicate I'm a creative.

I'm not a corporate.

I use Patagonia.

But I would like Patagonia only.

And I'm sure you use a backpack, right, Carla?

Have you ever used a suitcase?

I think you just throw it on your back and off you go.

I put it in the paper bag.

It's a great boy.

I'm going to school.

No, it's good.

All right, last company.

We got to go.

Come on.

Well, can I just say that if I do a transaction quickly in the SPAC, which is very much my intention, then I will buy myself an entire series of Ramoa luggage.

Okay, good.

All right, last one.

Last one, but this has totally come off the rails.

All right, last one, a media company.

It's probably it's arguably one of the most valuable media companies in the private sector right now calm oh i think i think calm is a brilliant a brilliant app actually i know so many people that use it i don't know where it sits in terms of headspace i don't know whether or not they do a roll-up but i think calm has got a permission permission to go into all sorts of um things around the fitness and the health and wellness space i think they've done a great job and obviously you know hugely helped by covid Perfect.

Joanna.

There you go.

There you go.

You are brilliant.

In fact, I'm now feeling calm, just even you're saying the word

calmed me down.

Good.

I like that commercial.

We all sit and stare at it.

When you do your SPAC, when you decide when you're going to do that, will you come back and tell us why you picked the SPAC you picked?

Explain it to us.

I will happily do it.

It's got to be within two years.

Yeah, you do.

You have two years.

That's a long time.

You cannot be having an HR.

That's really an ARC.

No, do not let Scott in your HR.

Do not.

Let me give you some advice on that issue.

You can do something out.

You could be, you could be strategic

elf.

How about strategic elf?

Strategic elf?

Where did that come from?

On that note, Joanna, thank you so much.

That was perfect.

Merry Christmas.

Gangster Drakel, second most popular guest speaker in brand strategy.

All right, Scott.

One more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

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okay scott wins and fails what are your wins and fails uh well my win as we talked about it is i think that a lot of media companies are recognizing its business model and they're showing a lot of leadership and they're taking their premier ip

and holding hands and crossing the fire, whether it's Pixar, whether it's what you talked about with Milan, whether it's AT ⁇ T and Warner Media, Jason Killar and obviously Jan Stanky had to give their approval for this.

But I think they're showing real leadership and saying, okay,

if we can sign up another one to 3 million subscribers, it's worth more than the $700, $800 million.

I think this is a big, this is a key move.

And what people don't, the barns of, you know, people don't, you know what's the worst thing that happened to HBO, in addition to terrible brand moves in my mind?

The government, the DOJ, which decided, I know, let's trash our credibility and file antitrust against ATT because with $130 million, they should have to sell Adult Swim and the Cartoon Network, despite the fact that Apple has a billion and Android is two and a half billion.

But anyways, them holding up HBO Max for a year to 18 months probably cost HBO Max between 5 and 2 million subscribers.

Yeah, they were slow to

get to the bottom of the corner.

You don't recognize the ramifications, and in this instance, entrenching the incumbents,

specifically Netflix, Amazon, and Apple, you don't realize the kind of damage that really shit for brains a regulatory, a regulation when you take great departments like the Department of Justice and you politicize them, will you weaponize them and you say, guys, can you stick your heads up your ass for the next 12 months and distract the entire corporate market, pervert it, make it weird?

But HBO, Matt, I mean, HBO.

In my opinion, there's few brands that have fallen further faster than HBO.

I just think they've made a series of missteps, but also the fact that they were held back for 12 to 18.

this is probably that was an incredibly important 12 to 18 months when all the streaming video platforms were sort of coming out and getting subscribers or not.

Basically, Disney filled that void.

Disney Plus filled that void and signed up like 70 million subscribers.

Anyways, my win is I think these firms are demonstrating leadership.

Yeah, well, Jason Kylar would be like enough, enough of that.

And he knows how to fail and he knows how to succeed.

So,

you know, he knows how to get in and out pretty quickly.

That's my win.

And do you have a win?

I think I do like the Biden selections of who they're having,

who they have selected.

I think it shows a lot of care.

You know, everyone makes fun of his basement strategy, although Trump has completely disappeared.

That's a win, not having to hear from Trump, except on Twitter.

And then you can totally ignore that, not hearing his loud, obnoxious, fallacious voice.

But I think very careful and interesting.

We'll see how it goes.

I think he's got an uphill battle because of the situation.

But maybe,

maybe, maybe.

It just promising.

It made me feel good.

And it's not just feel good, feel good.

They're really good selections.

They're really, it's not everybody I knew.

I was expecting a lot more people, cronies, you know what I mean?

And it was a little more interesting.

Some of these people, and I've had to read up on a couple of people.

I didn't know a lot about.

They seem very, like the woman who's going to run.

Oh, which one?

Oh, the woman they just picked for one of the national security, but whatever.

In any case, all the selections I have had to look up, which is great, which I think is good.

And they all seem incredibly competent people, experts in their area.

The only one who sort of showed up was John Kerry, but okay, you know, yes, that's the climate czar kind of thing.

In any case, I'm very happy about that.

And the fail for me is, well, is this these Republicans have got to like, I don't know what they're doing to themselves.

I don't get it.

I get they're focused on Georgia, but this is not any way to build a party through crazy Sidney Powell, who got, you know, they dumped, but not really dumped the Kraken lady, who they, you know, they had her out front and now they're saying she never was with them.

I mean, they're just crazy.

So that's it.

That's what I would say.

Okay, Scott, do you have a fail?

I do.

My fail is that our xenophobia and also obviously our COVID-19, but specifically our incompetent.

response to COVID-19 has resulted in a 43% decline in international students this fall.

And international students, in addition to the dirty secret of education, is we claim we welcome international students for diversity.

That's bullshit.

They pay full freight.

They're our cash cows.

So in addition to it putting pressure on the university system, if you think about a brand,

we literally have absolutely no, we don't register a fraction of the incredible power.

that the American brand has on our everyday lives in terms of people paying more margin for anything that comes from America, in terms of their inclination to not help help our enemies,

in terms of them letting their best and brightest children say, all right, if you want to go to America, you can go because

I believe in that promise.

They have no idea, people don't realize we're the apple of whatever you want to call it, geopolitics.

And the brand is a function of awareness when we have kind of this 24 by 7 commercial because we're great at media running around the globe, but also the best and brightest from around the world come here for four years and they generally speaking love it.

And a lot of them stay, but a lot of them go back and say, you know, these are good people, and we want to work with them.

And the notion that we are taking this incredible asset, and also if you look at the NASDAQ, about 60% of the market cap of the NASDAQ is run by people who are first or second generation immigrants who came to school here.

Yes, are xenophobia.

So

this is, again, we suffer from this inability to, you know, this nationalism, this swagger, this bullshit, the xenophobia is literally trading on our kids' prosperity moving forward.

So it's a big fail that international students don't want to come to college here.

Hopefully, that might change.

40%.

It's almost been cut in half, Kara.

I know.

This is the damage one person can make.

You know, this is why elections matter.

And this one's still going on, not really, but it is in the mind of Donald Trump.

But it will be over, and we will hopefully get back to business in a way that

will focus in on these things.

That's a very good loss.

Speaking of when, next week, on Thursday, we will be here.

Thanks for being talking about Scott's new book, which has just come out, Post-Corona, A Crisis to Opportunity.

We also might have to mention a story broke while we were talking.

Amazon has hired Pinkerton detectives.

There's all this drop of all these internal leaked documents from inside its global security operations center revealing the company's use of

Pinkerton operatives, private intel to spy on workers, and extensive monitoring of labor unions, environmental activists, and other social movements.

Oh, dear, dear, dear, Amazon.

So maybe we'll discuss that in relation to your book and things like that, the power they have.

All right.

Scott, thank you so much.

We'll be back.

What a difference a week makes.

As always, email us at pivot at boxmedia.com to be featured on the show.

And maybe you can be as sexy as Bob from Brooklyn, who did a really good one last week.

And we want more like that.

Scott, can you read us out?

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

Fernando Finite engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burroughs.

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

We'll be back later this week for a breakdown of all things tech.

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Yes.