Platforms prep for election, Panera CEO on the coffee "rundle", and proposition-22 is a fail

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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 a chocolate mess.

Are you nervous, Kara?

I'm nervous.

I've decided not to be.

I can do nothing.

Yeah.

I have a new Zen, and it's not a Zen mentality.

It's like there's nothing I can do except not get on the highways.

So a bunch of Trump jumps, you know, block up traffic.

That's a really lovely thing to do.

What a bunch of assholes.

I don't know what else to say.

Well, you heard Chevrolet is offering 0% financing to anyone who's a fucking moron.

So there was a run on trucks.

And by the way, by the way, I mean, and they're channeling their inner French union.

I'm trying to figure out how blocking traffic gets you more votes.

I don't know.

They're just assholes.

They're just assholes.

I don't know what else to say.

It's like, you know,

someone was like, oh, you like it when Antifa does?

I don't even know who Anti-Fodd like or whatever.

I'm like, no, I don't like it.

No, I don't like it at all.

I don't like any of it.

Like, and I definitely don't like you guys, like, thinking it's fantastic.

So, don't even try to catch me on that.

They absolutely should have had blown up dolls on the roof of Chris Christie.

I mean, you know, he like had no comment about that whatsoever.

Like, yeah, I'm going to stay out of this one.

Ugh, whatever.

It's so funny.

They were like, AOC, we blocked the bridge.

And she goes, I took the throg's neck, you assholes.

I know my way out.

But I just, look, I.

There's so many assholes out.

It's just like it's Halloween for assholes.

Okay, it's one thing to be an asshole.

What's intolerant is to be stupid.

It's like, well, how is that going to help your cause?

You've got to think that they literally, a couple hundred people are just voting tomorrow just because they're so pissed off.

You're on your way to work.

You're on your way to pick up your kid from school.

Yeah.

And someone blocks traffic.

Yeah, they're going to try it all over the place tomorrow for voting, I think.

I think that's just like, you know, I think they're going to get more serious with the guns and everything else.

I mean, you know, the whole Biden bus thing,

it's like really dangerous, actually.

It's like playing chicken on a highway is not really a cool thing to do.

If someone had gotten hurt, it would have just the whole thing.

And then for Trump to say it's great.

And for Rubio, that little stupid sidekick.

By the way, did you hear Senator Rubio is already calling donors and raising money for 2024?

Whatever.

He's already raising money.

I'm going to do everything I can to defeat him.

I've decided I'm going to like move to Florida.

Like, I just like.

Come on down.

You know, he's just the worst.

He's like the worst because he's like an Igor and he's like a loser and like loser.

Like Republicans, you can do better than that if you want to have a bully.

Don't, don't, don't hire the bullies.

No, he's not a problem.

But if you reverse engineer a lot of our biggest problems, think about immigration reform.

He was on this task force.

They brought him in, young senator.

He's very compelling.

He's very charismatic.

Sure.

And he literally said, he got a message that the far right

didn't like the immigration reform.

And so he totally cut and run, totally killed the thing.

If we'd had immigration reform four or five years ago when that task force, that bipartisan task force was assembled, the world could have been in America a much better place.

He has literally been posing for the cameras in Iowa for eight years.

He's a witless, spineless imbecile.

I'm sorry, at this point.

They can do better.

Like, I literally like Nikki Haley better, which is really hard for me to say out loud.

Yeah, I like Governor Haley better.

Like, at least she's like, whatever, you know, whatever.

She's a strong.

She's a strong woman.

It's a really interesting situation for all of them.

We'll see what happens.

But we can't do anything about it.

So let's talk.

Like, one of the things that I've been talking about.

Well, just, just, just, I love a movie reference what you said reminded me vito morgenson a deeply underappreciated agree actor eastern promise is a fantastic film i agree obviously the the hobbit trilogy but he there's a movie he played a movie the marine movie with uh demi moore the marine movie with demi moore yeah okay but go ahead oh you mean the seal movie where she's a seal

um yeah he was also um in the hunt for red october but he's been in a bunch of he's been in a bunch of uh history of violence is a fantastic movie anyway anyway he's in a movie, I forget the name of it, where he plays an addict with Sandra Bullock, and they're both in rehab.

And he has a statement.

He plays a pitcher, a reformed pitcher.

And he says, once the ball's out of your hands, it's between God, the weather, and the batter.

And what you said makes sense.

The ball's out of our hands, right?

Yep.

Anyways, that's right.

So I don't know.

It was called G.I.

Jane, and he played Master in Chief, if you remember.

Master Chief, Master Chief.

A Ridley Scott film.

A Ridley Scott film.

I love that movie.

I hate to say I love that movie.

I don't know why.

I don't know why.

It's so bad.

Wait, a woman dressed up as a Navy SEAL.

I'm trying to think why you like that movie.

She just was.

I love when Demie Moore goes for it.

I don't know why she didn't have a bigger career because she's just shameless in so many good ways.

So that's why I like her.

She's a misunderstood artist.

Yeah, probably.

Not an artist.

But Vigo Morgenson, I agree.

He's been an amazing movie CEO for that.

He's underappreciated.

The tech company, speaking of strong people, have done really well in reported earnings last week.

No surprises.

They surged.

Their stocks are off, though, today, even though there's been a bit of a rally.

There was a downturn in Wall Street and now, but

the techs aren't coming, jumping as much as the other companies like retailers and such.

Why is that?

Well, Amazon, I mean, Amazon, think about this.

And the post-pandemic.

I think it's a big rise in profits.

Whoa.

Yeah.

The profits up threefold.

It's really almost scary that Amazon,

if you look at their business, whether it's cloud computing, whether it's streaming video platform, delivering stuff to your home, I mean, it's as if this company was invented for a pandemic

and then a lockdown, a stimulus, essential retailers.

And Amazon's done a great job.

I think that one of the biggest,

we don't like to acknowledge the threats that didn't result in a panic, but I believe that we would have had panic if Amazon and Walmart's supply chain had been interrupted.

I think that's when people would have grabbed their Glock and gone to Publix.

And

I think they both did a great job to their credit.

But it's clear these companies, if they can,

when there's an opportunistic infection that takes out a lot of business and employment, unemployment doubles, and these companies massively accelerate, it's like, you know,

heads they win, tails they win.

This is kind of blown by all reasonable standards of

them that there's no stimulus, there's no what?

That this election is confused.

That's assuming the bear case for everybody.

I don't.

I think, I mean, Facebook, I think the bear case around Facebook is that executives there do a perp walk.

I think Facebook is so beyond the pale of damage to the Commonwealth that they might actually have poked the bear so many times.

I think they're on thin ice.

Apple is running out of people to sell a smartphone into.

They've got to come up with, you know, they'll move to the Rundle, but Amazon.

It's just hard to imagine that Amazon doesn't run through the tape and not only win the 100 meter, but wins the 500 meter that wins the marathon.

It's just hard to see them slowing down.

And then Google, I think, is subject to some antitrust.

But if you look at Azure up 48% year on year,

the company I was following, and so just some disclosures, I'm a shareholder in Apple and Amazon.

I used to be in Facebook, and the people correctly highlighted I was being a total hypocrite.

And so

I signed, I sold my Facebook stock.

But anyways, I'm also a shareholder.

in Twitter because I think Twitter has been grossly not mismanaged, but undermanaged.

And I don't know if you listen to that.

You probably didn't do this, but listen to the earnings call it was literally the day before there's a story in the wall street journal that comes out that says okay this co-CEO who manages two companies takes four ice baths a day and it's described as very hands-off in other words he's just not fucking home he's not not there he is the literally absentee CEO doesn't even begin to describe this

and then and then in the earnings call he spoke for about 20 seconds and then handed it off to the CFO was like I don't know what's going on here and then did you see what happened to Twitter stock Twitter stock is off 25% in the last two trading days.

And all that, you know, CNN and CNBC are all saying that it was low user growth.

Twitter's numbers were good.

You know, you know what they did?

They said, it's very difficult for a company to accelerate when it doesn't have a CEO.

I think this is a referendum.

I think the labs are lacking in the marketplace that it's gotten.

I think all the investors listening to the Ask call go, oh, shit, no one's home.

Anyway, there's going to have to be a lot of home going forward for sure for these companies.

All right, we're going to go into our big story, which, Scott, is the election.

Okay, we can't escape it.

Everyone has election on the brain.

Not Kara.

Kara's put down her phone and is not looking at Nate Silver or et cetera, et cetera.

So as we go to the polls, let's talk about how platforms are prepping for whatever lies ahead.

You talk about perpwap of Facebook.

First up, Twitter will put messages at the top of users' feeds that are preemptively debunk false information about voting by mail and election results.

By the way, Jonathan Swan at Axios is reporting that Trump plans to declare victory before the polls close on Tuesday

if he looks to be ahead.

Trump said he didn't say that.

It's very confusing.

As usual, Trump is muddying the waters.

This is his favorite thing to do.

Wikipedia is also prepping for misinformation by creating misinformation task forks.

Dozens of people across the foundation's security, product, legal, and communications team have set up protections for the website, guiding hundreds of unpaid volunteers who edit its pages.

For example, the main page for the 2020 election will be locked and unable to be edited without guidance from the task force, which is interesting.

Meanwhile, PayPal has ended its account with Epic, the domain registrar for far-right websites such as 8chan and a domain to the Proud Boys website.

Everybody's trying everything.

I don't know, Mark Zuckerberg is worried about civil unrest.

Thank you, Mark, since you caught some of it.

A lot of these people who did the traffic thing were organizing on Facebook, of course.

So

what do you think?

What do you think?

Well, I'm going to turn the question back to you.

Y2K, which never happened.

But personally, I think the civil unrest is not coming.

I think that the election interference is not coming because I think it's going to be that decisive tomorrow.

And again, that's my bias coming out.

But

the only thing I would speculate about is that, for example, that

sad little penis gang from Murder She Wrote that surrounded the Trump or the surrounded the Biden truck or the Biden bus.

Yeah.

Little penis.

What do you know?

It was organized on Facebook.

And I bet we're going to find out slowly but surely that when bad actors, i.e.

Russia, saw that going on, I mean, we provide the spark.

They poured fuel on it.

Yes, they did.

We're going to find there were instances all through this election where Americans gave in to their worst instincts and provided really negative, divisive, polarizing, terrible content for the sanctity of our elections.

And there were bad actors who Facebook's not interested in rooting out because it results in a decline in shareholder value came in and poured fuel on it.

And that's going to be one example.

Agreed.

You know, this is just, they just have to, you don't even have to try.

And I think some of them could be, you know, remember last time the Russians started groups to get people angry.

But it was interesting, it's not just Facebook, though, let's be honest.

I just got a text from one of my sons and said, I just got Trump ad that was an ad on YouTube.

He uses YouTube a lot that was a Latino-themed song to get them to vote for me and clips of his dancing.

Why are they targeting me?

I get Biden ads too, but the contrast is incredible.

Biden ads are just so much more respectable.

And then Amanda wrote back, every dollar the Trump campaign spends getting their ad in front of a lefty 15-year-old in D.C.

is a dollar well spent, in my humble opinion.

A lefty 15-year-old.

They're grooming him for the future.

He's not lefty at all, actually.

He's quite, he questions everything.

There's nothing that this kid doesn't question.

But one of the things that is interesting about that is like he's been focused on these ads and he finds them reprehensible.

He finds the Trump ads reprehensible and they let him get away with it.

And it was just a story in the post today talking about that is like how much they get away with on YouTube or Facebook or wherever.

So I think, you know, the post-mortem should be fascinating, although we might not be able to trace their post-mortem.

Yeah, but you, so the question I did want to turn back to you is: so, these people stopped reaching out to me about two years ago, and there's pretty much a blanket order across all of them not to speak to me, but they do speak to you.

What is your sense of their efforts around election misinformation?

Do you think, A, it's effective?

Do you think it's genuine?

What do you think is going on at these companies?

You know, I did an inter, I've done a lot of interviews lately about this.

I think the problem is the disinformation is coming from explicit.

It's not Russia.

It's not, it's Trump, right?

So it's the Trump people or the Trump minions and everything else.

And so it's explicit disinformation that you can see in plain sight.

So same thing with the racism.

Same thing with all of this stuff, the violence, the casual violence.

It's all made.

Everything implicit has been made explicit.

So now we see it.

Like, oh, look, here they are just calling for, you know, beat this person up or I'm going to fire this guy or lock him up.

Like it's not.

So I think that's one of the issues.

So they have to just take him off.

That's the only choice.

And so what they're doing is selectively disciplining, which of course doesn't work.

Right.

And so I think there's frustration with the fact that there's nothing they can do about it, really.

This is what they've been found out.

And two, a lack of realization about the fact that the reason they, these people act in this way is because because they've never been disciplined right and so it's too late it's literally like you fed a group of kids sugar for their whole lives and you're surprised they have adhd or whatever they're like obese or whatever on and on and on and i and i i think at this point if i were the trump people why not break the laws it doesn't there's no there's no enforcement why not why not like and so i think they feel powerless and at the same time they cause the whole thing i guess you know what i mean so you get a lot of well we're trying our best.

We're trying our best.

And you're like, you know what?

Just stop because it doesn't work.

It doesn't help.

It doesn't stop things.

And you do around the edges by getting rid of QAnon and this and that.

But the next day, it morphs into something else.

And it's the platform that's the problem.

Well, Steve Bannon, it really sent chills down my spine because you can see

Steve Bannon's very smart.

But he said, you know, the strategy which the Trump campaign is now adopting again is you get closer to the election, you flood the zone with misinformation.

Just flood it and confuse and discourage people.

And I'm just going to be very curious.

It's going to be very interesting.

I think they're in a state of panic.

I think Facebook and Twitter are like, oh, no.

And again, the analogy is our parents are home and the dog is pregnant and the garage is on fire.

We are in deep shit because let's be honest, there's no way to wallpaper over.

You know, we just have run out of excuses.

And the election is so important.

And we're going to find, I just think they know we're going to find out.

A lot of bad shit went on.

Just a lot of bad shit.

Yep.

And I wonder how genuine they are and the level of resources

they are actually allocating

to trying to suppress this.

It's going to be fascinating.

It'll be very interesting.

I understand who wins.

If Trump wins, they're okay.

They're like, they're not going to look.

Why would you look at it?

I mean, you have two ways.

If Trump wins, which seems unlikely, but if it happens, they're sort of off the hook.

And then who knows?

Then they just have to do it themselves.

And they may not be able to because this is working for that group.

If Biden wins, does he have the energy?

He's got a million other things to do.

This is not, Trump isn't going away.

That's the other thing is what do you do with a post election Trump who's lost?

And that's what's interesting.

Will he fade away?

And he could, because people instantly get tired of this bullshit, I think, on one hand.

That's right.

Or is he going to be,

you know, at some point, everyone's going to go, stop talking.

Like, stop, like, if he's not president, then he doesn't really matter.

And if, especially if he's locked up into legal battles, which I think is going to happen for him.

So,

what do you do with post-Trump

Trump?

Post, you know what I mean?

Like, that's what I think will be interesting: how are they going to deal with him?

I think they'll be much quicker to not worry about left, right-wing bias, which is bullshit.

And it's a ridiculous worry on their part.

I think they'll be more willing to.

You know what happens to him?

The analogy is: Megan and Harry.

If Megan and Harry were awful people,

that's the analogy here.

And that is once Megan and Harry left Buckingham Palace, no one gives a shit about them.

No one gives a shit.

And I genuinely believe that once this guy is out of the, I think his core base, they're not drawn to him because of ideology.

They're drawn to him because they thought he was a winner.

And America needs to win again.

And America needs to be politically incorrect.

And we're sick of these Democrats and Republicans lying to us.

We want change.

The moment he's out of office, first off, every Republican

senator senator whose testicles have not descended, which is about 52 of the 53, are going to totally abandon him.

I think even Fox is going to say, do we really?

Then he'll make noises around starting.

The latest one is he'll make noises around starting a right-wing media network.

I know what's involved in.

Maybe it'll be like Quibby.

It'll be just like Quibby.

I'll tell you.

And you do too.

We know what's involved in running and starting a media company.

And guess what?

It takes a certain level of competence.

And he is not able.

He has demonstrated an inability to surround himself with competent people.

So I just quite frankly think he was, I think it is shocking how fast it's going to fade to black.

I don't think he, I don't think Fox is going to want him on anymore.

I think I'm like, okay, it turned the page.

Well, you know, it's interesting.

Could he go into a Reagan-like zone, you know, like, and he will dispense his power to the people?

I don't know.

It just depends on how quickly it is.

Say more what you mean by that, a Reagan-like zone.

It just depends on what the numbers are.

Like, if they're pretty close, he has power.

If they're not, it's just a bunch of crazy, like the people who run around and do their truck thing and whatever.

You know, eventually they'll

want too many Twinkies and have a heart attack.

We're all afraid to say this, and I want you to give me the argument, is that all this early, but more, I think more people in Texas have voted

before the election than voted at all.

And I'm just trying to imagine, I know there's two factors.

There's COVID-19.

I want to get it out of the way.

And then there's passion.

And I'm trying to figure out what's happened in the last four years that would have increased the passion of Trump relative to Biden.

It strikes me.

No, it's Biden.

It's get rid of Trump people.

All of this early voting.

I don't see how that's going to be.

Which is why they're making so many moves around the voting, trying to suppress the votes.

That's why they're doing that because they realize what those votes, what those ballots are saying.

What's interesting to me is, you know, when I interviewed Hillary Clinton just recently, she's saying what you're saying.

She's like, it's going to be over for him, and then he's going to be sucked up into lawsuits.

Like, she knows

becoming irrelevant.

The southern district is waiting.

You know, that's one.

And I think she wasn't even talking about the lockup because she was not even, that wasn't even the topic.

It said people, he's going to instantly get tiresome, especially if he loses badly, because his whole image with his base is based on winning and fuck the man and that kind of thing.

And so she was very much like that.

I was like, I don't know.

The people who like him really like him, like really, really like him for some reason, because I think it fills the holes in their own feelings of being left out or being sided with.

Do you know who they knew Donald Trump is?

Who?

I had Stephen Schmidt on the Prof G podcast.

By the way, very thoughtful guy.

He's really good.

By the way, they're going to be the enemy again soon, so go ahead.

You think they're going to be?

Oh, they're still conservative.

They're still very.

The Lincoln Project is pretty interesting.

I'm very drawn to it.

I know you are.

I'm very drawn to it.

I like region moderates who are creative and unafraid.

I like these guys.

I like the fact they're smart and savvy.

I like the fact they make money.

People criticize them without a living.

I'm going to give their list of things they like.

You wouldn't like them.

But go ahead.

I like them, too.

Anyway, I like to be.

a big fan of Steve Schmidt.

So he came on and he said something really interesting.

And that is, I agree with you that his people aren't going away, but you know what?

They're going to find a new Mussolini.

And you know who the new Mussolini is?

Who did he say?

It's going to be Tucker Carlson.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

He will be a political force.

Steven Schmidt said that he thinks the most viable candidate on the Republican side in 2024 is going to be Tucker Carlson.

And think about how much more compelling

and smart

tucker carlson is than trump and he goes in with the same features the reality tv awareness they can run a bunch of clips of him embarrassing scientists and embarrassing democrats i think right now i hate to agree he's very dangerous i think he's the frontrunner i think he's the frontrunner

he's what's fascinating is liking both people very wealthy grew up very wealthy and tucker carlson really fancy.

You know, at one point, he goes after me quite a bit, like when he has me.

but he always talks about my private school education.

I'm like, your private school costs $10,000 more than my private school, my friend.

That's your best comeback?

I don't like your telling me insulting my private school.

Yours was 60, mine was 50.

Oh, my gosh.

It's like, I can't believe he's using that.

And he went to a more expensive private school.

I just thought that.

Your water park was bigger than ours.

He is from a much richer family than mine.

Let me just say.

I do not come from poverty.

I do not.

But the man,

it's like the Swanson fortune.

I didn't know that.

He's like the TV dinner people.

You know what?

I got the answer.

I think it's Swanson.

You guys should wed thee to unite Westeros.

You shall bear children together.

There will be the next king.

And I will be your hand.

I will be your hand.

Oh,

it's all figured out.

I'm looking this up.

I think it's Swanson.

I'm pretty sure it's the TV dinner.

He's rich as heck.

He goes to Maine.

I don't go to Maine.

Only the real.

What does that mean?

What do you got against me?

We have big houses in Maine, and they're really not very comfortable.

And they like.

It's a very important ballot initiative in Maine.

What?

Which one is that?

Maine and Alaska both.

And this is

huge.

Susan Collins?

What?

No, no, no, no.

Well, I think she's out.

We'll see, but I think she's out.

I think she's only number two to only Rubio in terms of someone who lacks all backbone.

May I just read his name?

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson.

That's his name.

Indubitably.

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson.

I am Kara Swisher.

That is it.

That is my entire name.

T-Swish.

Let me just say that.

I am of it.

Let me just say that again.

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson.

Like,

he is a rich kid.

He's a rich kid.

I totally open that Tucker bashing session.

But Maine, back to Maine.

So Maine has a ballot initiative, and so does Alaska.

And they're really two important initiatives.

And I would say that they're only second to 24 in terms of indicating where the country might be headed, California 24.

By the way, no on 24, everyone.

Anyway, so it's for rank voting.

And I think that we need in America to make our elected leaders more representative of America.

And I don't speak for

the silent majority here, but a silent majority or a majority that's been silenced is what I'll affectionate refer to as raging moderates.

And our current election system doesn't allow moderates to get any oxygen, and ranked voting does.

So I think ranked voting, these two things in Alaska and

Maine, are, I really hope ranked voting becomes a thing.

We need more people in the center.

We need more purple.

We need less red,

less bloody red, less iridescent blue.

We need more purple.

We need more people in the middle of the election.

I like purple.

Let me just go back to Tucker Carlson for a second.

I'm going to report people.

In 1996, Carlson's parents divorced after a nine-year marriage reportedly, quote, turned sour.

Carlson's father was granted custody of Tucker and his brother.

Carlson's mother left the family when he was six, wanting to pursue a, quote, bohemian lifestyle.

Interesting.

Well, that makes him more likable.

I know, but I think it made him mad.

And then his father married the heiress to the Swanson fortune.

Anyway, and I don't know how Swanson got his name, but there you have it.

In any case, we are going to

go.

So I'm going to ask you, we're going to go on a quick break in a second

and a palate cleanser from Election Talk.

Who is going to end up the worst of the platforms in this situation?

If you had a pick?

Facebook, YouTube, what?

Oh, there's just no getting around it.

Apple is disarticulated and starched its hat white.

Hands down, the scaled sociopathy that is Facebook never fails to disappoint.

We're going to find out that it's just built into their culture.

A total lack of regard for our Commonwealth, a total lack of regard for our species in terms of cooperation, a total lack of regard for how dangerous it is to have algorithms.

And by the way, it's nothing that Twitter isn't guilty of.

It's just that Facebook's better at it.

But yeah, we're going to find out all sorts of crazy shit about Facebook and how this, you know, $300 million to fend off election interference was nothing but what Vaseline on a giant gaping wound that is the sociopathy of the most damaged individual to reach this level of power.

Tucker Carlson.

All right, we're going to take a quick

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Okay, Scott, let's bring on our friend of Pivot today.

He's the CEO of Panera, Nirin Chowdhury.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Great to be here.

Well, Scott's going to start it off because it was his choice to have you here, and I'm very excited.

So, Niran, full disclosure, when I heard heard about the Rundle program that Panera was offering, the coffee program, I reached out to Nirin and asked if I could invest.

So I want to disclose that.

And I haven't made that investment yet, but

if he wises up, he's going to take my money.

But I am so impressed with this company because I look at the best performing stock of the last 10 years.

It's not Amazon, it's Domino.

So I think the Fast Casual, the QSR, the innovation there, it's an enormous category.

And I think innovation there is really exciting.

Can you talk to us a little bit about your approach around what I'll call recurring revenue bundles and how you see the world of Fast Casual changing?

Certainly, Scott.

So firstly, I'm really flattered that you'd want to invest in Panera.

And we are absolutely open to you investing as much as you like.

Thanks for saying that.

Well, you know,

Panera has always been an innovator and a leader in Fast Casual.

And as you know, we were number one in food transparency, number one in digital e-commerce, et cetera.

And we we continue to carry that torch forward in everything that we do, this

healthy sense of dissatisfaction around the status quo, constantly pushing ahead and looking for ideas to improve our business model.

And I think you referred to the recurring revenue model.

I think that's certainly the first of its kind in the industry.

We're very excited.

We want to be the Netflix

of coffee, as if it were.

And the idea is very simple, which is, you know, premium coffee doesn't have to be very expensive.

And Panera has a great premium coffee, which is an underleveraged asset.

And you bring those two things together and you have this unlimited coffee program where for $8.99 a month, you can have unlimited coffee.

And I think the

strength of this program is manifold.

So firstly, I think in terms of just a business model, you know, recovering revenues of the subscription that you get annually.

On top of that,

you're able to drive frequency up of your customers.

We are seeing frequency gains of as much as five times basis this program.

And then you have attachment on top of that.

We're seeing 40% of those increased visits are having food attached to it.

So it's like, I'm just going to interrupt you there.

It's like Amazon, where when someone goes to Prime, they go from $600 a year to $1,500 a year.

I'm curious.

So you've signed up almost a million people.

Yeah, we had a million people expressing interest.

And now as the

the time kicks in for them to start actually paying for the subscription, it is coming down, but still it is close to about 400,000 at this point in time.

So

as a CEO of a company, so there are several big players in the space and you're one of them.

And pre-pandemic, it was the cost, the major costs or capital allocation was real estate, loosely what I'll call branding, both in-store and out-of-store, billboards, TV, whatever, in-store labor.

I'm trying to think of the big costs and then innovation and then the product itself, food, which typically is not the most expensive part.

Post-pandemic, walk us through how your capital allocation is going to shift or change and why so i think post pandemic we're sort of you know uh looking at a completely new uh or i would say a stronger and a different business model and the business model is going to be more orientated towards the off-premise needs of the customer So more geared towards off-premise convenience, and which is driven primarily by through e-commerce access.

You know, and we have a very strong foundation of e-commerce.

So off-premise, convenience, access through e-commerce.

And I see actually

moving forward smaller box formats with a smaller amount of percent of a business being on-premise, a larger chunk being driven off-premise and primarily unlocked through

e-commerce.

So can you add, what is, how big is that?

Your stores are now pretty big.

They're like restaurants.

So our current Panera is, let's say, about 4,500 square feet.

40% of our revenue pre-pandemic would come from on-premise.

Go forward,

I see that world flipping.

And I see that a bigger chunk of revenue will now come increasingly from off-premise.

And you're looking at maybe a size going down from 4,500 square feet to about 3,000 square feet.

So smaller box, smaller capex,

even for a similar revenue.

better asset turns and therefore superior returns as we go forward.

Is that a trend that you saw pre-pandemic?

I think pre-pandemic, also, we were looking at, you know, how can we make our whole business model more scalable and more profitable?

And we were working around these levers of, you know, smaller box and more efficient capital deployment.

I think that whole process has just accelerated dramatically.

And what percentage of your business is a digital?

I mean, technically, what percentage of your business is e-commerce touches digital?

Yeah, so I think e-commerce is about currently about 60% of our total sales.

So it is up from, say, about 35% pre-pandemic to close to 60%.

And I would say this is probably right up there in food retail and something that we continue to leverage extremely hard.

And as you know, Scott, I think on the e-commerce, what we realized is the return on the

advertising spend is at least three to four times more efficient than that of traditional media.

because you can be so much more targeted and so much more impactful.

And therefore, we're pushing a lot of our dollars in that direction as we go forward, more and more digital investment and continue to drive our e-commerce percent.

And we talk a lot about income inequality and software being used to arbitrage people.

Can you talk a little bit about,

and generally, Niran, we've talked about a lot of things.

We haven't talked about this.

Can you talk about your labor force and how you, quite frankly, develop some of the economic security and move wages back in the right direction?

Because typically, Fast Casual is not known for paying people people very well what is your approach your viewpoint is it worth a reduction in EBITDA and shareholder value uh how are you approaching giving people a living wage that work in that work in your in Paneras yeah sure so I think that's a great question I really believe that at the end of the day it first starts off with continuing to build a very strong brand a brand that can therefore demand some sort of a premium from customers.

So it starts with the brand promise, which is very strong and differentiated.

Then your need to be, your ability to execute against that brand promise consistently is very important so that you build a loyal franchise.

That in turn creates a business model, which then is strong enough for you to take care of all your various stakeholders.

I think our mindset is that actually it all begins with the people.

our employees, our associates, and the culture that we create.

And my firm belief is that if we truly love and take care of our associates as we should, which includes living wage and also beyond that, taking care of their growth and their ambitions so that they want to stay with Panera, that in turn then creates more loyal customer franchise.

And if that happens, that's how you actually create sustainable shareholder value.

So I see those not as conflicting levers.

I see them very much aligned in the way in which we can create shareholder value.

You said you referenced the number 60% e-commerce, which immediately makes me believe that all of a sudden a huge component of your CapEx, your management, your approach is supply chain between the store and the house.

That all of a sudden you have

not only the need for pickup, but the need for delivery.

What's your approach to delivery?

Do you think you outsource it to Uber Eats, which is obviously more capital light?

Do you make the what must be a huge investment in vertical, and that is having your own Panera employees with their own insurance, their own decent compensation, their own cars?

What's your approach approach to the supply chain on the back end?

I think delivery is certainly a channel which has tremendous tailwind, as we all know.

So our delivery is growing at over 100%

right now.

So we are the,

I would say, probably the leader in Fast Casual in terms of having the largest fleet of our owned drivers.

We have 8,000 drivers on our own payroll.

And that's how we came into the pandemic with that number.

But we had around just before the pandemic also started exploring partnerships with third-party aggregators.

Because the way in which we look at it is that we want to make sure that the top of the funnel is really open for our customers and they can order a Panera where they want it, when they want it, how they want it.

So we have the full range of options from fully owned to fully outsourced delivery models and hybrids in between.

And what we are doing, we are probably the only

I think brand that has that full dimension and scale of fully owned and fully outsourced and hybrid solutions in between.

And what that means is that for all of our over 2,000 cafes, we can customize the right business model for that particular cafe and that trade zone, keeping into account the requirements of the customers, the ease or difficulty of hiring drivers, etc.

When you think about the pandemic and how it's changed your businesses, you're not not going back to the other one.

How do you look at the whole food industry, which has been suffering obviously through the pandemic, among retailers, food, things like that?

Is it just this is the way things are going to happen for good with less people at work, more people remote and things like that?

Well, I think, you know, this is a very challenging moment in time.

And I think what makes it uniquely difficult is that the health crisis is becoming a financial and a humanitarian crisis actually, and all happening at the same time.

Right.

And also the customers are changing what they want and what they expect right now dramatically, more so than ever before.

So, customers want more safety,

they want more off-premise convenience, they want e-commerce access, they want more compelling value, and they want meaningful food innovation, you know, in our category.

And I think those are dramatic changes.

And I think for all of the brands, I think it is a time where we have to redefine ourselves and innovate

to become, continue to be relevant to the customers as we emerge from the pandemic.

But one of your great businesses was office workers, right?

You were located a lot.

So is that gone?

Do you feel like that's gone?

Because I was talking to a lot of businesses and they were like, we're sticking with 65% of people working remotely from now.

I think it's been

hugely impacted.

So to give you a sense,

I mean permanent, permanently impacted.

For the moment, so give you a sense, 10% of our total sales was coming from catering.

And that has gone down by at least 60%.

This is to offices, right?

To offices, yeah.

So, you know, Panera had, you know, we were the nation's.

We were the nation's largest business caterer.

And, you know, you can imagine that we, you know, almost half of the business has disappeared because of what's happened.

From a business perspective, my last question.

This is airing on the day of the election.

Is there a difference?

You look at a Trump win versus a Biden win in this election.

What do you need as a business person, aside from lack of this ridiculous fight?

You know, just the noise and everything else that is created by this very difficult and partisan election.

Well, I'll tell you: you know, our world and every waking moment is consumed totally on what we should be doing differently at Panera and how we can serve our customers to the best of our ability better than anybody else, how we can take care of our associates.

There is so much that we need to get right

that that's where our focus is.

And I think that's what we'll continue to do.

All right.

Thank you so much.

We really appreciate you coming on.

Thank you very much.

Great pleasure.

Okay, Scott, we're going to go on a quick break.

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Okay, Scott, wins and fails.

What is your win and fail?

Oh my god, that this election is over.

Look, my...

24 hours.

Yay.

So I'm hoping my fail is proposition 22.

I think that Uber has not figured out a way to be profitable, but has figured out a way to,

alongside of Lyft and

Instagart, raise or allocate or spent a quarter of a billion dollars to continue to rob people of their dignity of work.

There was a story about a family whose father was so desperate for work that he loaded up his car with Diet Cooks and his diabetes medication, caught COVID, died, and his family, his heirs, can no longer get workers' compensation death benefits, which they would be able to do if Uber was forced to pay payroll taxes as employees.

Uber is a company that not only doesn't make money, but it's a company that lacks empathy, but finds a quarter of a billion dollars to make sure that workers don't unionize, to make sure that they still don't make money when there's someone in the car.

So I'm hoping the million dollars that's gone to the no on Prop 22 somehow fights back and finds purchase amongst California voters who are fighting against a quarter of a billion dollars behind the yes on Prop 22.

I have a lot of confidence in California voters.

They have a sense for the future.

So that's my, that's my, I don't know if that's my win or my loss.

And then again, I want to bring it up.

The rank voting in Alaska and Maine, I think is super important.

So anyways, those are my wins and losses.

What are yours?

Very good.

My win, I think, is the Texas Supreme Court denying.

These are these petitions.

Nice.

All of these petitions that the Republicans are seeing to suppress what's going on.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

After it had been ruled by this governor, the attorney general that they should be able to do this, it's just like this voter suppression thing.

I interviewed

another very preppy guy, Trevor Potter, another name, Trevor Potter, such a good name,

about this.

He's a lawyer.

He works for a nonpartisan group that's trying to stop this.

He worked for McCain, that gang, essentially.

And it was just amazing, all the different stuff around the country.

And I think these lawsuits are just insane.

It's just that they're doing this.

It's just, you can't win the real way.

You do it the fake way.

And so just like win by getting more votes or having a good platform or anything else.

But this is, and I know I sound like I'm Jimmy Stewart and

Mr.

Smith goes to Washington, but honestly, this is just ridiculous.

This is just ridiculous.

This idea that votes are being stolen.

It's just such, this voter fraud thing is so fraudulent the way they talk about it.

And that's so, I thought that was a win.

And I think a fail is this continued, what is the base common denominator of shitty, including attacking Dr.

Fauci right in the middle of the peak of the epidemic?

What a fail.

What a, you know, like attacking him and saying he's going to fire him.

And that's just, it's just FYI, suburban women love Anthony Fauci.

I mean, come, like, what are you, who are you going for there?

And so I think this attack on science and, and I, I wish more Silicon Valley people would frigging speak up about this kind of stuff.

I have not seen enough tech people really defending science and which is adjacent to tech.

And so I think that's a fail on their part, especially.

I expect it from Trump.

I do expect more leadership from the tech community on defense of science.

So that makes sense because, or just as

a footnote to our guests,

the name, you know what they call suburban moms now, both CNN and Fox, what they call, they used to call them soccer moms.

You know what they call them now?

What?

Panera moms.

Seriously, they call them Panera moms.

But most importantly, most importantly.

Panera mom.

i'm a panera mom i go to panera all the time with my children because it's healthier i love it

not healthy but healthier many things you can do very well there from a healthy point of view i agree in any case scott

should i sign us out are we signing out i mean honestly honestly yeah you ready next time we speak it should all be over will it all be over i don't know but it should

be we're turning the page we're absolutely turning the show

there is no civil unrest.

People, take a friggin breath, no matter what side you're on.

Try not to block people in traffic.

You're an asshole when you do that.

I get that you have a point of view, each side, although there are not nice people on both sides.

Kara, the immunities are kicking in.

We are absolutely

saying no.

We're going to say no to Proposition 22.

We're going to say no to Republican governors who don't want to win the vote.

They want to suppress it.

We are saying no to skilled sociopathy.

We are saying no to people who have no respect for our government.

We're going to start funding our institutions.

We're saying no to an economy that lets someone be worth the GDP of Lithuania while 25% of households with children can't, are food insecure.

We're going to say no to being the mother of all useful idiots of Russia.

We're going to say no to people who want to send women back to old Spain.

We're going to say no to the American arrogance masking as exceptionalism.

We're going to say no to administration that will go down as leving more death, disease, and disability on America than any people in history.

We're going to say no, Kara.

You know what we're going to say no to?

We're going to say no to terrible fathers who have five children by three wives and then raise them to be expectant jerks with no empathy.

We're going to say no to people who mock the disabled.

We're going to say no to people who believe it isn't time for a woman of color to be in the West.

Waiting tomorrow night or tonight, we open a can of whoop-ass.

There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America.

And tonight, we are the righteous.

And if he doesn't win, if Biden doesn't win, I'm not leaving America, but I'm going to move in with Alec Baldwin, who threatened to leave America, which is even worse, even worse.

America again.

This is America.

By the way, Scott,

just so you know, we had a bit of a criticism this week by someone with a name that we're not going to repeat.

Nonetheless, we are doubling down on who we are, aren't we, Scott?

Aren't we?

You know what?

You know what?

As you get older, you become more like yourself.

And guess what?

Guess what?

The jungle cat and the dog are really fucking old.

this is who we are that is right and this is who we're gonna be we're talking about our family our neurosis our excellent insights on business and tech and everything else and you're just gonna you don't listen if you don't like it my friends that's the way it goes right

we love you the ones that love us good luck tonight america america let's do this let's do this okay scott the world may be different next time we talk so now how are you keeping calm as results come in as always email us at pivot at boxmedia.com be featured on the show tell us how you feel uh how it's going What do you think?

What do you hope for for America?

How about that?

What do you hope for for America?

Scott, read us out.

Today's episode is produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

Fernande Finite engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Thanks also to Anna Rosen and Drew Burroughs.

Make sure you subscribe 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 later this week for another breakdown breakdown of all things tech in business.

America, we got this.

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