Apple goes 5G, the Feds want to break up Google Chrome, and Fareed Zakaria on lessons from 2020

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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.

I want to talk about what happened at Facebook, because you always take a lap around the field.

Two years ago, I did an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, where he went, where I was.

That was a good segue.

Seriously, very elegant.

Very elegant.

Listen to me.

You never like to tell.

Listen, listen to me.

They're finally removing Holocaust denial content from its platforms.

It was a reversal of previous policies of Zuckerberg.

And in fact, in an interview I did with him, he said he was not going to do this.

And now two years later, because of the rise of anti-Semitism, probably.

And he said he would.

I said he would.

I said he should think about what's on his platforms.

I'm not dictating to him what he should do, but he pivoted from Alex Jones, which he also removed and denied he was going to remove, to the Holocaust, which he absolutely wasn't going to, Holocaust denial, which he wasn't going to remove, because he said Holocaust deniers don't mean to lie.

So I think this is a really interesting moment.

What do you think about this?

Do you think it's wrong for him to do this or right?

Or why does he do it now?

Well, I think the only thing that's wrong about it is that it took so long.

And it's, you know, a new administration can cast a very long shadow.

And I think all of a sudden Facebook's like, uh-oh, there's not only going to be a new sheriff in town, there's actually going to be a sheriff.

And we better at least pretend that we give a good goddamn.

So I think all of this, I think you're going to see more and more

what I'll call illusory head fakes.

We're now just getting serious.

Just as we get closer to the election,

it looks like Biden's going to win.

So

I think this is an attempt to pretend that they were concerned all along as an administration who is going to be much more serious about these issues becomes more and more a reality.

What if they make me

head of internet?

Do you think they'll make me head of internet?

Head of internet?

Yeah.

I think they're consulate general.

Consulate general of all digital.

Let me just tell you, besides what you would do, because you would cry weepy with tears, if they made me head of internet.

Cried weepy with tears?

You know, weepy tears.

My crocodile tears.

If I was made head of internet and I took the job, what do you think would be the information at Facebook that day?

What would you think they would feel that moment?

So you're literally a little fucking Mussolini.

You're literally,

you're like, imagine, imagine how they would react when they found out I am queen of the world.

Seriously.

I want to say that

I'm asking a serious question.

I'm asking a serious question.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, let's not imagine that.

Let's imagine it.

You know what?

I'm going to take the job.

I'm going to leave you with the show.

You find yourself a lady who'll put up with you.

Listen to me.

Listen to me.

Listen to me.

Twitter is also changing its platform look in order to stop the spread of misinformation, which there was another report today about how much of misinformation had risen, especially on Facebook over the past couple of years.

The company, Twitter, will give users a pause before they can hit the button to retweet a post from another account.

And if users try to share content that Twitter has flagged as false, users will be warned.

This seems like basic block and tackle, correct or not?

You really want to tweet that?

I think that's what it is.

I really don't get this one.

This is like

a pause.

Take a minute.

How long's the pause?

I don't know how long the pause is.

I haven't seen it because I don't really retweet that many.

Yeah, I don't.

I mean, that's literally the best I can come up with.

Second part, I agree.

That should have been in place.

If it's something that they declaim false, do you really want to tweet this?

This is we think it's false.

Yeah, well, okay, but then it begs the question, if we think it's false,

why is it on the platform?

Right.

So you don't like any of these things.

I think these are, I think these are, you call it, you have the right term for it.

It's the slow roll.

Let's pretend we're actually doing something what would you do then just take it off just take it off false self if if if they took the time to label it as false and it's getting a lot of attention yeah get it off the network or there's a lot of things you could do force don't let them be anonymous i mean it's like this i love this ridiculous argument well but there are journalists in emerging markets that need to be anonymous okay you're talking about 0.01 percent identity the reason why people don't show up and start screaming at other other people around anti-vax, or they don't start insulting them, or they don't start throwing

racist insults at people is there's something called identity.

And people go, well, I agree.

I'm big on identity.

I agree.

You're a horrible person.

We're going to stop inviting you to our barbecues.

And when you're on Twitter, they're like, oh, no, we need these accounts need anonymity.

No, they don't need verified identity.

Everyone needs a blue check.

If you're going to say this kind of shit, you should be accountable.

Very hard to do, very expensive to do.

I've heard they have a lot of money.

I've heard these companies have some capital.

They don't want to spend the money on the things that are expensive.

Well, that's the point.

We're not talking about the realm.

Again, we're not talking about the realm of the possible.

We're talking about the realm of the profitable.

But where we started was you taking your victory lap.

You, in fact, did say to Facebook, look, take the content down.

You're eventually going to do it.

And they slow rolled it.

And now that it looks like a sheriff with an actual gun and a willingness to actually enforce the law is showing up, they're all pretending to give a good goddamn.

You know, I just wonder what day of the silent retreat Jack Dorsey came up with the pause button.

Like, how deep into that?

They have apps like that when you're drunk.

You think you breathe into it and then you're not allowed to talk.

I think it was the sudden rush of judgment he received the last time he got a nose ring.

Like, oh my God, well, that hurt.

Wait, pause button.

Pause button.

Yeah, I think it came to him in the middle of a piercing.

Okay.

All right.

Well, they've been sort of trying on their iHorse or Twitter compared to Facebook.

They like, they're like taking a lot of victory laps and doing stuff they should have done in the first place.

Yeah.

But anyways, well done, new queen of the internet.

I'm going to be sheriff of the internet.

Sheriff.

I have a pause.

You know, I definitely listen about the free speech elements of it, but there are like stores don't tolerate people running around screaming anti-Semitic things.

This is a business.

Like they can make decisions like this.

This is not a,

it's not like the internet.

These people can create internet sites as much as they want and spew their venom as much as they want.

This is a business that can make determinations.

That's my feeling.

Thank you very much.

The definition of a media company is a company that leverages a medium for reach, and then they usually monetize it via vis-a-vis advertising.

And when you're a media company, you have a certain editorial responsibility

not to promote content that tears up the fabric of our society without a discourse, that diminishes people's standings, that perverts our democracy.

And these companies could have done it.

They should do it.

They could afford to do it.

They have the technology to do it.

And they have purposely lied and delayed and obfuscated.

And

they should absolutely be held accountable.

They've done tremendous damage.

You can become my sidekick.

You can be, you know, what do you mean?

Become.

I am your sidekick.

First of all, you're not even a deputy.

I could be the sheriff.

You could be the deputy that ends up getting shot.

It's the deputy whose family always gets killed.

Deputy.

Deputy dog.

Deputy dog.

That's perfect.

All right.

We're going to move on to big tech stories, a really big one today.

Apple is having a big iPhone event this week.

I think it's tomorrow.

We're expecting the company to unveil 5G high-speed phone connections.

At the beginning of 2020, only 13% of phones sold had these 5G capabilities.

Apple's actually been late to this party.

Other companies have been adding 5G capabilities.

Beyond phones, 5G paves the way for more connected devices like self-driving cars, et cetera.

Meanwhile, in other Apple news, the federal judge ruled that Apple does not need to reinstate Fortnite into its App Store, though it does have to reinstate Unreal Engine.

This represents a pretty big blow to Epic Games.

The judge was basically, you got to keep your continued perhaps, but it's a contract.

So what do you, she didn't say shitty, I do.

It is a shitty contract.

But what do you think?

Talk about both these things.

5G and Apple win in on the on the thing.

It's going to go further, obviously.

It's going.

It's going further.

5G is exciting.

I mean, bandwidth, there's the economist did a study about a decade ago, and they correlated

GDP growth with bandwidth.

So

whether it's your kid getting better access to remote learning, whether it's the ability to onshore manufacturing because you can make your factories more efficient, better farming,

the whole vision of robotic surgery and AR might actually.

But it's not here yet.

Do you think you should introduce these things before they get here or not?

Do you think they're getting ready for it?

Well, I think,

simply put, the coal or the fuel for these things,

the combustion engine is broadband.

And

we've been better at creating apps that outpace the actual bandwidth available.

I mean, it just strikes me, supposedly the connection in my house, I would bet the connection in my house is 100 times faster than it was 10 years ago.

And we still find ways to crash it and not get the kind of throughput we want.

So,

you know, look, broadband is the morphine, the fuel, whatever you want to call it, the sunshine,

it is the ultimate resource.

What about Apple putting out these phones before everybody has it?

They kind of have to, right?

They have to sort of move in that direction, like everybody everybody else.

Well, sure.

And I don't know if you saw, but their stock is up on the notion of a super cycle and an upgrade and them saying this is important.

You know, anything that convinces you to spend $1,200 on $500 with their chipsets and sensors is in Apple's interest.

And the stock is up on a super cycle

anticipated upgrade.

And the stock, I mean, you want to talk about something that's crazy.

Apple usually trades at an average PE over the last 20 years of about 16.

It's trading at a price to earnings multiple right now today of 38.

Wow, that's a lot.

I mean, that's just, it's just staggering.

It took Apple 42 years to get to a trillion dollars in market capitalization.

Between March and August, in five months, it went from $1 trillion to $2 trillion.

Yep.

So this is, I mean, it's kind of crazy to him what's going on with Apple.

And the latest one that they are, you know, saying, okay, this is really exciting is 5G.

And they are, I'm going to tune into the, I'm trying to find moments of engagement with my 10-year-old, and he's really excited about technology and Apple products.

And we're constantly trying to get him off screens, and that wasn't wasn't working, or it sort of works.

So we're going to lean into it.

And he and I have a date to listen to the Apple big event.

That's what parents, that's what dads do with their kids now: they watch the big event.

My son has started to read books.

Oh, that's weird.

That's just sick of the surprise.

He could see a therapist.

We went apple picking yesterday, and also we went to Monticello.

What's wrong with you guys?

We went apple picking the right.

We went to Monticello?

Yeah, we did.

We went to Charlottesville.

I love Charlottesville.

There are not fine people on both sides, just one side.

We went to Charlottesville and we went apple picking.

We went to to Monticello and he was reading a book the whole way.

It was not on his screen.

I don't know what to say.

I feel good as a parent.

We played Fortnite.

I gave him sugary snacks.

Well, Fortnite.

What do you think about this?

Fortnite, you know, Apple winning this case.

I mean, it'll go further, and obviously there's going to be government looking into, I mean, the House subcommittee talked about Apple's ridiculous control over the App Store, but nonetheless, a judge said a contract is a contract.

What do you think about that?

Yeah, they're all good boys and girls.

They entered in the agreement.

I mean, here's the thing.

It's not technically illegal to be a monopoly.

What's illegal is if you abuse your monopoly position to put other companies out of business.

And so that was the basis of what I thought the real insight was around the House Subcommittee report is that, okay, you can be a monopoly, but if you're Amazon and you're just tracking every product that is doing really well and then reverse engineering every feature and pricing and then introducing a product that

just puts that previous company out of business by virtue of the fact you were gleaning data from it because of your monopoly position, then that's illegal.

And I think the decision here is: okay,

they've built in and invested in an incredible app store that is effectively a monopoly.

But unless you can prove that they're using the data from that to introduce a competitor against Epic, you can't show up and decide you don't like the terms of the monopoly.

This is the only game in town.

Why should there be only one game in town?

Well, that's interesting, but they will have to change.

That will be government.

They will have to.

I think they will have to change laws because right now it is not illegal to be a monopoly it's illegal to abuse your position as a monopoly yeah i think it's got to go to the government this is this is all it's as we have talked about it's got to go to the government the government has to get in on this agreed it's got to go

it'll be interesting to see even if apple won this one i have a feeling that in the long run they're going to we're going to have to do something about just two a single app store depending on what platform you're on because you really it's not even a duopoly it's just you if you're on google you have to use google if you're on apple you have to use apple so is it an integral part of it or do they have an ability just to shake everybody down?

So, it'll be an interesting question.

These will be questions posed to the new queen of the internet, sheriff, sheriff.

I'm sorry, our deputy dog.

I am the sheriff.

I will have the bigger star, obviously, and you will be the bigger

shot by the bigger star.

Anyway, let's take a quick break and we'll talk about the feds looking to break up Google Chrome and a friend of Pivot, Harid Zakaria.

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Welcome back.

The Justice Department and state prosecutors investigating Google's potential antitrust violations are talking about spinning off Google Chrome.

Interesting move.

We're expecting the Department of Justice antitrust legal battle with the search company within a few weeks.

Who knows?

Maybe not now.

This would be the first major court-ordered breakup of the company in decades.

This forced sale would obviously represent a major setback for the search company, although I don't think so, and neither does Scott.

Right now, Google dominates the $162.3 billion digital ad market.

So it's interesting that they're going for Chrome and a little bit the ad business, but then of course leave Facebook out of this.

Like you can't

examine the ad business without leaving Facebook, pulling Facebook into it.

But the Chrome stuff is really interesting.

And that's sort of

that to me is interesting versus the marketplace.

And search.

I think search is where you look, but I think it's interesting to put Chrome in here.

What do you think?

I was surprised.

It hadn't dawned on me.

I thought they would either spin YouTube or maybe spin the cloud business or force them to break up the cloud.

But when you think about it, it may make a lot of sense.

They may be seeing things that at least I haven't.

And that is, if you go back to the kind of the origins of the internet, one of the biggest mistakes that at least Mark Andreessen claims they made was not building in micropayments into the original browser.

And because there are no micropayments,

online media has totally changed.

In other words, if I could just pay a half a cent to read that Washington Post article or that great or a great Maureen Dowd column for 10 cents, whatever it might be, it might have entirely changed the ecosystem where these media companies weren't forced or didn't have to let Google crawl them and then take their data and monetize it and give them a nickel in exchange for a dollar worth of content.

The internet could have been a much different place if the browsers had been focused or enabled micropayments.

And I wonder if they think that at the end of the day, it's the browser that dictates how behavior and different fulcrums of power.

So I thought it was really interesting.

I don't understand it.

It just

shocked me that that's where they decided to start.

Of all the places, right?

To break up.

I have a feeling they don't want to go for the ad market because they don't want to, the administration doesn't want to attack Facebook, because you can't attack Google on advertising without attacking Facebook.

And so it is interesting.

I do think, as you and I do, if they ask them to break things up, we have more expensive companies for people to buy, shareholders to buy into.

Like this idea of not being a bad thing, being a good thing for consumers, for shareholders, for all kinds of things, and solving a problem.

I mean, one of the things is there's certain changes they need to make in these browsers that if Google makes them, it gives them enormous advantage as opposed to others like Safari or other or

Mozilla.

You know, there are changes that have to be made that do improve, and everything Google does tends to advantage it.

Well, it goes, it's logical to think that if you're giving away the browser and the browser is the initial interface with consumers to the digital world, but you're monetizing it by selling keywords and digital marketing, that a lot of the feature functionality of the helm of the bobsled is totally focused on how to guide you towards their business model, which probably has resulted in a shaping of

the lens through which we view our world now is totally focused on how do I drive more value downstream for Google, which probably means the product will look, smell, and feel different if it has to be a standalone business.

So I think it's super interesting.

I want to understand it better.

Yeah, it is an interesting thing.

And I think they are the fact that they're trying to, I think, go away that they can win, essentially, because a way that they can actually show to a lot of the constituencies who've been upset about this that they are having some control over Google.

I still think the digital ad market and the search domination to me, there's no easily fixable solutions without, again, either aiming at Facebook or I don't know what you can't break up search, like make it into two search companies.

This is where

I think there is some opportunity.

I think if they were forced to spend YouTube, I think in the first corporate strategy meeting of YouTube where they all decide they want their own Gulf streams, they say, you know what, we're really good at search.

Let's just do text-based search.

And I think within six months, they'd have a competitor to Google.

And within six months, Google would have

a competitor, a new competitor to YouTube.

And all of a sudden, the tax that has been levied literally on the corporate world around search would begin to decrease.

And I think you'd find more innovation in video search and more innovation in video search.

Overnight, instead of coordinating and cooperating, you'd have two competitors.

So I think some of that would get started.

this browser thing.

Let me read from a politico thing and then we'll get to Farid Zakaria.

The browser which Google introduced in 2008 has the largest market share in the U.S.

by far, actually, has been the center of rivals' accusations that the search giant uses its access to users' web histories to aid its advertising business.

That criticism escalated in January when Google said it would phase out the use of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser within two years to enhance consumer privacy.

A good thing.

But the cookies, small files a browser uses to track visits to websites are also a key tool for publishers to demonstrate the effectiveness of advertising campaigns to ad buyers.

So, you know, anything they do here is

difficult because of their domination.

And this actually goes to their domination over advertising.

It's an interesting way to get at that problem of, because they are not going to be able to figure out a solution for search.

There's not going to be search competitors to Google.

I don't see it anytime soon.

Yeah, I agree.

Even if you break them up.

Anyway, it's interesting.

We'll see how long that takes, whether it goes through.

Obviously, people are...

Except for Apple.

That's the dark horse.

Oh, I know.

You keep saying that.

Yeah, we'll see.

When is that happening, sir?

I don't know, but Apple's stock was up $105 billion

just five days on the notion of their own search engine.

And I think what they've probably learned is the way you monetize it.

I'm sorry, the way you monetize

your own browser is through a search engine.

Anyways, okay, another giant monopoly going into it.

Remember, Jan?

Me neither.

Anyway, they used to dominate search.

Anyway.

All right, Scott, let's bring on our friend of Pivot.

We have Fareed Zakaria, who you're very excited about.

Oh my gosh, I am literally Rosie O'Donnell meeting Tom Cruise for the first time.

This guy.

Farid, Farid, before you even say a word, you should know you and I are going to be very close friends.

You just don't know it yet.

This is the gangster of truth.

This is a light in the darkness.

All right, a moderate who is data-driven.

Farid Zakario, what a thrill.

What a serious.

We will show you ways to block him.

Anyway, Farid, let me introduce you, Farid.

He is host of Farid Zakaria, GPS for CNN Worldwide, a columnist for the Washington Post.

He's author of a new book called 10 Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World.

Welcome to Pivot.

Welcome.

Thank you so much.

And I am going to record this introduction and play it over to my kids every day.

He's on standing note.

Scott is, you know, also Stocks Anderson Cooper.

But anyway, in any case, let's have a quick rundown of this book.

What are the 10 big lessons you're taking from 2020?

It sucks is my lesson, but let's hear from you because we talk about this a lot of tech companies being advantaged in this era.

But let's hear your point of view.

But I'd say the biggest lesson that I think I'd like people to understand is the way we are living now

is we are embracing a lot of risks to the planet.

And the planet is now fighting back.

So if you think about pandemics, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, all these things are happening.

And it's happening, it's not, as one scientist said to me, it's not nature, it's what we are doing to nature.

You know, if we continue putting out all this CO2 into the atmosphere, if we continue to encourage and subsidize people to live at the edge of forests,

if we encourage factory farming, all these things, factory farming, by the way, is like a petri dish.

for epidemics and pandemics to incubate because the virus gets stronger and stronger in these places where you herd vast numbers of cattle together or vast numbers of chickens together.

So all these things, we're taking on a lot of risk and we don't seem to recognize the nature of the risk and we are not trying to create a more sustainable, resilient planet and environment where we can live in.

Scott?

So Farid, you talk about in your book that as the U.S.

withdraws from the rest of the world and then China fills that vacuum, and one of the examples you use is the World Health Organization.

America takes its ball and goes home.

And China kind of slips into those shoes.

If you think that the baton has been passed to China in terms of geopolitical leadership, or that's the narrative you hear a lot about, who do you think other than China and the U.S.

are the biggest winners and losers in a new kind of post-pandemic world where you have the ascent of China and the decline of the United States?

Who are the big winners and losers other than those two entities?

Well, it's a great question.

I think that

basically East Asia has has done very well out of the pandemic.

If you want to ask yourself who gets the gold medal for handling COVID-19, it's probably Taiwan.

Taiwan, with a population of 22 million, right next to China, millions of tourists from China every day, it has had seven COVID deaths.

Think about that.

22 million, you know, New York State is about 19 million.

We've had 34,000 deaths.

Houston, Texas is about the same size, 7,08,000 deaths.

But it's not just Taiwan, it's South Korea, it's Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam.

But I'd make a broader point, Scott, which is

we are not doomed to the world that I was describing,

the trend lines in.

The U.S.

has incredible advantages still.

It is the most powerful country in the world.

There is an enormous amount of goodwill for the United States.

This is really a case where it's an own goal.

You know, Trump has picked up his marbles and gone home.

He's alienated large parts of the world.

This is all totally unnecessary.

This is fixable.

Now, what's not fixable is it's a new world.

It's a much more diverse world.

You know, power is distributed much more.

I use a kind of a metaphor from the internet.

You know, everyone is connected, but no one is in charge.

That's the world we're in now.

And but we know how to play in this world.

We've done very well in this world.

And that part of it, I feel we could easily recapture.

There's, you know, China's momentary victories over COVID and things like that.

This is all small change.

We can easily get things back on track if we get our mojo back.

I love that.

So just to follow up on that, I love the theme of the world is not what it is.

The world is what we make of it.

If you're advising the Biden-Harris campaign, what are the first three things you would urge them to do around repair and getting off our heels and onto our toes, our rightful place as a nation?

The first one would be tell the world we are back.

Go back and embrace the historic alliances.

What Trump has done is it's really a break with 70 years of American foreign policy, which said engagement was good.

The world we have built, an open, rule-based world, was good and it benefited us.

Make that clear.

Go out to the Allies and say that.

The second most important thing is, I think we need to commit as much to these rules as we want others to.

So, one of the reasons the WHO, the World Health Organization, was not able to go and demand that China give them information we have designed the WHO to not have those powers because

we don't want them messing around with the US.

Similarly, we accuse the Chinese in the South China Seas of not obeying the law of the, it's called the Law of the Sea Treaty.

But we haven't signed it ourselves because, you know, we tend to think we're exempt from all these rules that everyone else should play by.

And that hypocrisy is not going to work anymore.

You know, we've got some big problems.

We need to solve them.

I heard you guys talking earlier about dealing with big tech, and I think you're on exactly the right kinds of issues.

But, you know, these are problems that can be solved.

And once we take it, you know, once we have that kind of can-do mentality, we'll realize, look, other countries have problems too.

China faces a huge demographic, economic, technological problem, not to mention the fact that it has this strange system of a Leninist dictatorship on the one hand and a market economy on the other hand, and they are fused together in a very uneasy way.

So

we need to understand that the goal here is to run fast, but not to run scared.

In your book, you quote one of my favorite quotes, speaking of Lenin, that sometimes decades can go by and nothing can happen, and then there's weeks where decades can happen.

Where do you see the biggest changes taking place?

You're sort of, I mean, if you think about the markets, the markets absorb thousands of data points and then spit out a number every day.

You're talking to world leaders, you're in the midst of an ad-supported media company,

you speak to very powerful people.

What is the market telling you?

What industries,

where do you see an incredible,

advice to your 25-year-old self, what business, what societies, what economies would you want to put yourself in the center of?

I think the biggest trend coming out of COVID-19 and the pandemic is the big are going to get bigger, the smaller are going to get wiped out.

So if you think about I'm selling a book, book sales are actually up.

Book sales are up, I think, somewhere between 10 and 15% compared to before the pandemic.

By my sense, from what I've reading, is Amazon was about 30% of book sales in February before the pandemic.

It's now something like 70% of book sales.

It's certainly over 50% of book sales.

So who is getting wiped out in that?

It is the small mom and pops, the independents.

The same tendency is probably happening with Home Depot versus its competitors, Walmart versus its competitors.

It's basically big brands with strong lines of credit, with diverse businesses, with diverse operations.

They're all going to do fine.

And of course, then you overlay onto that, anyone doing anything digital is going to be advantage.

It's a very, in some ways, unsettling world because you, and I think it's going to happen at a pace and a scale.

larger than people recognize.

Even if you look at something like restaurants in New York, you notice the restaurants that have been managed to make it are ones that are parts of chains.

So it's

Daniel Bonu.

Right, exactly.

It's places that have that capacity.

It's the small, Michelin-starred restaurant started by this great chef, but he's one person, you know.

And it's, I mean, it's, and given that 40% of American employment comes from small business, given that that was, you know, restaurants were one of the easiest ways for non-college educated entrepreneurs to make it up, it worries me a lot.

But I would definitely, if you had to bet, you know, even whether you're looking at stocks, just look at every industry.

It's the top two that are just soaring ahead of everybody else.

So New York, bullish or bearish?

And it's a broader question about the future of cities.

I'm bullish.

I think, look, cities survived the bubonic plague.

London survived the plague, the great fires of the 17th century.

It rebuilt.

In fact, that often is a spur to innovation.

The only caveat I would make is this.

I think in general,

look, this is not nostalgia or romanticism.

You make more money living in a metro area.

This is absolutely undeniable, quantifiably true.

People go to cities fundamentally because it is the easiest way to make it.

You meet people, you make connections, you learn best practices.

Some of our cities are badly managed, are really badly managed.

So those cities will either have a very tough transition or

they will not make it as well as they can.

So leadership matters.

Management matters.

You can't just,

you know, in none of the stuff can you hope that these big structural forces will just, you know, you can just ride the coattails.

No, no, you got to hustle.

You got to get it right.

So some cities will not make it.

But as a general proposition, I think cities are not going anywhere.

So two questions.

One's a request or a prediction.

COVID-19, we have demonstrated extraordinary incompetence and arrogance thus far.

Six months on, where do you think America is relative to other nations as it relates to COVID-19?

I think we will be in better shape.

Better shape.

For two reasons.

Yeah, two reasons.

One, I tend to believe we are likely to get a new administration.

And I think a lot of getting this right.

Look, American government is tough because power

is divided among

three branches of government, dozens of agencies in Washington, and then hundreds of local governments, you know, thousands really.

And so corralling all that together is very hard, requires real discipline, a real focus.

It also requires people who believe in government.

You know, if you come into power as Donald Trump did, saying this is the words of Steve Bannon, his ideological guru, who said, our mission is to deconstruct the administrative state.

Well, if you're trying to destroy American government, guess what?

It's not going to function that well in a pandemic.

So getting that part right is going to be very important.

The second is we are now moving into a phase where therapeutics and vaccines are going to become more and more important.

Those are largely the province of the private sector.

And there the America still is unbeatable.

So I suspect that for those two reasons, six months from now, we'll look a lot better than we do right now.

My man, brother.

Last question.

From all exterior metrics, you appear to be living your best life.

You're a thought leader.

You have influence.

You give the impression you really enjoy what you do, you make a good living.

If someone's 25 and says, Fareed Zakaria, like, I want that gig.

I want that gig.

What were the key elements or the key decisions or the key sacrifices you made in getting yourself, putting yourself in the seat you're in now?

Number one ingredient is luck.

And I think that people like us who are successful,

We massively undervalue the role that luck plays.

And I think that that ends up giving you a a sense of superiority and it makes you uncharitable towards people

who are less successful than you.

Absolutely.

I think

it's a virus and it's a very bad way to live your life.

So I think it's really important to keep in mind front and center luck.

The second thing I'd say that I had going for me was I managed to find something that I really love to do.

You say it looks like I enjoy myself.

It's so true, Scott.

I mean, honestly, I don't tell this to my employers, but I can't believe I get paid to do what I do.

I would do it anyway.

I do do it anyway.

You know, I mean, that's what I do.

And so to be in a situation where work and play are synergistic and it's all fun and you're excited to get up every morning to look at what's happening in the world, that's a real blessing.

And however, I managed to do that, I'm so grateful for that.

And then the other thing is, you know, maybe because I'm an immigrant, I'm a bit of a hustler in the sense that I, you know, like I read books and all that, but I was attentive to the fact that there was a shift taking place from print to digital, from digital to TV.

You know, so if you notice my career, I start out as an academic.

I then go to foreign affairs, then I go to Newsweek, then I go to CNN, you know, so it's like I am aware that

I need to survive.

You know,

I don't have a trust.

Immigrant gene.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Fareed, like, I mean this sincerely.

You are a role model.

I just, the word, I was trying to think of the word to best describe you.

I think you're courageous when, you know, calm and slow thinking,

we're in the midst of a certain gestalt or a certain storyline, and you are not afraid to absolutely take data and thought and reason and say, let's rethink this.

This just, the data doesn't play out this way.

And I can't imagine the kind of pushback you get, not only from your employer, but from listeners on a regular occasion.

And my sense is you just have,

I know you're no longer an academic, but the basis of academia is the pursuit of truth, regardless of who it offends.

And my brother, you pursue the truth with reckless abandon.

You really are a role model.

Thank you so much for the work you do.

Scott, you're so kind to say that.

You know, it means the world to me.

I've loved this podcast.

And so it's like a special thrill, not just to be on, but, you know, to hear you say that, you made my week.

Just as a quick reminder, Farid has a book out, 10 Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World.

Farid, thanks so much.

Stay safe.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

fails.

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Okay, Scott, wins and fails.

What are your wins and fails besides you interviewing Fari Zaccario?

Okay, so

my fail is Yelp is now putting a kind of a badge or a label on businesses for quote-unquote alleged racist behavior.

And I think this comes from a good place, but I think they've got caught up in

the middle.

Yeah, and not only that, racism, sexism, these things are so ugly that

any accusation, any intimation that you're involved in this, a little of it sticks.

Regardless of the veracity or the lack of the veracity,

it really tars the company or it stains the company.

And so I just don't, I think this is right for egregious examples of that.

It was interesting because I was just reading while I was waiting to get back on this story in the Washington Post about the second lady of Pennsylvania, which seems, Pennsylvania seems like a really divisive place these days.

I was born in Pennsylvania.

And my family lives there and is from there.

And this woman is a second lady of

Pennsylvania.

She was in a grocery store and this lady started whipping out like really racist remarks and she got a little of it on video.

And it was disturbing, you know, that people are willing to do that.

So what do you do when you're like have an encounter in a restaurant?

You should just put it in comments or what?

Well,

there's a lot to unpack there because I really, these, some of these videos of quote-unquote Karens, I find disturbing because quite frankly, I think a lot of the people being filmed are suffering from mental illness.

Yeah, fair point.

And I think it's, I think this gotcha tribal, look at how stupid and ugly this and humiliated, I find it really uncomfortable.

I think she got assaulted.

That's not true.

I don't think it's, look how stupid this woman, like, she's standing there buying kiwis and this woman starts yelling racist remarks at her.

I don't feel like I don't know the specific situation.

I don't care if she's uncomfortable.

There's something.

Yeah, but go ahead.

I don't know.

I just think we could be a little bit more generous with each other and realize that there's probably some people who are struggling.

And not only that,

does that incident automatically elevate or melt up to the institution that it happened in?

No, of course not.

No.

Yeah.

So, anyways, that's what I'm saying.

I think a lot of stuff is happening within physical environments like stores, especially with masks and everyone irritated that it's gotten on edge.

On edge.

And everybody then has the camera to film it.

Now, let me just tell you, as someone who is not a cis white man, I have had so many remarks about gay stuff over the period of my life by totally mentally fit people.

They just rank remarks

and they just got to do that.

And what you did is you ignored them before.

And today I don't ignore them.

And so that's why they escalate.

It doesn't happen as much for sure to gay people, for me at least, but it did frequently in the past.

And I think it's just, I think some people are just tired of it, tired of the remarks, tired of the things, and tired of people saying whatever the heck's on their brain all the time, which I think is a problem.

Yep.

Yep.

I do think when you're watching, I don't know about you, but I've seen some of these videos, I think,

I don't want to let the person off the hook, but a lot of times I think this is someone who is

there's some, this is sick.

There's something going on here.

And anyways,

it's a difficult topic, but I think Yelp, and quite frankly, I think this is another, I reverse engineer everything to monopoly power.

I think Yelp is basically having, has

all the oxygen being taken out of the room.

I think their windpipe is slowly being crushed by Google, and they're doing anything they can to try and reestablish themselves.

And so they're going the other way and trying to be what I would call sort of overzealously politically correct with a mechanism that could end up being more harm than good.

Anyways, enough of that.

My win.

I really hope that my win is Mayor Pete, because of the Supreme Court nomination process or approval process or or hearings that are taking place, the big issue that'll be put front and center is

choice and abortion.

And the thing that bothers me about the narrative is that inevitably the right and conservatives will immediately zero in on late-term abortions.

And I love what Mayor Pete said about just restoring some data to the argument that less than 1% of abortions are in the third trimester.

And that if you think about what's actually happening here, a woman is picked out a crib.

She's likely picked out a name.

And for some often tragic reason involving her health or the health of the child, she has to make this terrible decision.

And his issue was, we always have a conversation around where the line should be.

And the question should be, who gets to decide if and where there is a line?

And

just some basic data around abortions.

99% happen before week 22.

The most common reasons stated for terminating a pregnancy are financial, timing, partner-related reasons that they don't have the support of the man who got them pregnant.

Two-thirds of people who have an abortion already have a child.

95% of people who terminate a pregnancy say it was a good idea and they remain relieved.

Violence to women declines precipitously after abortion because they can break ties.

Only one in five teen fathers go on to marry the mother of their child.

You know, even

this is just, the argument here misses it missing.

But they don't want to get into the statistics of it.

That's not of interest.

Yeah, but we can and we can remind people.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Look, overwhelmingly, they just put out another survey.

Whatever people think of this Barrett thing, which is going to go through, and they're going to shove it right through.

I think it's a waste of time to argue how unfair it is, but go right ahead and say it.

I agree.

You should.

You should reiterate it to the people.

I think overwhelmingly, people are

for abortion, national abortion rights.

You can look at all the statistics.

It's sort of like gay marriage.

They're in the high numbers.

I think they're still litigating something they lost a long time ago.

Now the question is, interestingly, I did do a podcast today with the head of Planned Parenthood and she is sort of planning for life post Roe v.

Wade.

And of course that plays out in the state houses and everywhere else where

what the anti-abortion forces did well was to, besides the gerrymandering and everything else, all the tricky tricks they played, one of the things they did is they chipped away so that it makes it so that incredibly, I couldn't believe the statistics when I found it, 90% of counties do not have abortion providers in this country.

Like, that's the way they've chipped out it by rules.

Like, the same thing with voting.

It's the same thing.

Chip away with either identification or voter suppression.

Same thing with abortion.

Chip away with, you're not allowed to operate.

So they effectively have a law that cannot, people cannot avail themselves to.

And that's how they win.

Make it logistically impossible.

Exactly.

Where I would start with my win is Mayor Pete.

I really hope Mayor Pete finds a position of national prominence and in the cabinet.

And the way he summarized it, and I'll quote from something he said when he had an interview with Chris Wallace.

I think the dialogue has gotten so caught up in where you draw the line that we've gotten away from the fundamental question of who gets to draw the line.

And I trust women to draw the line when it's their own health.

I think he has

a means and an intellect of distilling to the right issue and articulate.

I just, I don't know.

I'm so glad.

I'm so glad you haven't gone to Beto, you back to Beto, but I do like that you've gone back to Mayor Pete.

Anyways, my win is Mayor Pete.

I like that you've gone back to him.

You always, that was always your favorite.

He really was.

That's always been your favorite.

I have to say, my Keaton, the queen of the internet.

Sheriff of the Internet.

Can you get it straight?

I'm not the queen.

That's not a nice term.

I want to be the queen.

I want to be the bae of the internet.

Here's my win.

I thought Kate McGinnon was hysterical

breaking the wall on Saturday Night Live.

I didn't see it.

What happened?

She plays this doctor who does something like that.

And she wears a wig.

And so apparently,

Colin Jost said to Joe Joe, whatever, said to her,

are you okay?

And then she started being like, this election, this shit that's going on.

And I put on this wig and I say it in this voice and I feel better.

And it just was so funny.

It was so much funnier than her character even.

And so I thought that was just a, it was really, really wonderful.

I love when that happens, when they lose it and then actually say what's on their brain.

I thought that was really a delightful.

Did they have another, was it called?

Yes, Maya Rudolph.

Yes, they had the fly was Jim Cannary.

It just went on and on.

The only thing that was great about that was Maya Rudolph.

All the women women of Saturday Live are so, so good.

And people lost their mind over Bill Burr, but I, you know, whatever.

Bill Burr is just a shock comic.

And I think, whatever, it wasn't that bad.

But a lot of women didn't like, white women didn't like it.

He had a whole take on white women that was not very nice, but it was whatever.

I don't get all bent out of shit about it.

I think my fail, I don't, you know, I think this continuing, like the use of Anthony Fauci in these ads by the Trump administration and then him having to push it back, that just drives me crazy.

He's not a gangster, though.

Like everyone else, he sees a Biden-Harris administration.

He's found his testicles.

Yeah.

Well, he should quit.

I'd be like, I'm quitting.

Why is he quit?

Well, that's.

Trump should quit.

He's going to get Trump to quit for him.

He's got it, but he's got to be even more.

He's not allowed out.

What's really interesting is John Swan from Axios and myself, too.

We've been trying to get interviews with him, and they won't let you have him.

They won't let you.

It's really interesting.

And so he's not really allowed to talk.

Although at this point, I think I would have said that.

He called the White House gathering a super spreader event.

I know, I know, but I should say, he wouldn't have said that six months ago.

He wouldn't have said that six months ago.

But he should really start to just be like, you know what, I'm just going to talk.

Good luck.

Fire me.

That kind of thing.

I think it's there.

I think there's a lot of people.

I'm going to really do it, like, really drop the bomb on them in a way that he should.

He has a power.

He has the leverage right now.

So, yeah, these super spreader events and the continued super spreading events.

It's just, I don't even understand it at this point.

And I guess it's to exhaust people by having 10 super spreader events.

And then you're like, which one do you look at?

And of course,

these hearings going on right now, there's like John Kennedy and some of the others.

This anti-Catholic thing is crap.

There's never been an attack the way they're talking about on people's religion in that regard.

And I think it's a shame.

It should be about

her judicial history.

And as someone who is a Catholic, I can, and the nominee for the Democrats is a Catholic.

It's just weird to be focused on.

You're Catholic?

Yes.

I didn't know that.

See?

You know, I used to go to church when I was much younger.

Did you?

Yeah, I was told I was the prettiest boy in the choir, and I was touched.

Okay.

All right.

As usual,

that's good church humor.

I hope you guys enjoyed it.

That is good church humor.

That is bad church humor.

That is bad church humor.

Indeed.

Oh, my God.

He and I are going to take it.

I hate when I lose touch when you're around talking to people outside of our house.

I'm going to take him for Mexican food.

No,

you know what?

I can't even begin.

All right, Scott.

All right.

All right, Scott.

What questions do you want to answer from listeners later this week?

What questions would you like a question on?

I'm easy.

Whatever's on their mind.

No, not whatever's on their mind.

Get the specific marching.

No, okay.

All right.

I will do.

What do you want?

What do you think of Facebook doing these bands now?

Why do you think they're doing it?

Okay, okay.

Oh, my God.

Think of one rather than being as usual unhelpful and just like making you dirty.

Ask us anything.

Ask about career.

Ask how you become the sheriff of the internet.

Email it.

When I get emailed, they're adults.

They could change.

I'm going to say security.

That's.

I love that.

That we role play what happens when you take over the world.

What happens when I get more power and I eliminate all my enemies?

No, I'm going to get security.

Anyway, email us at pivot at Voxmedia.com.

This went downhill from Fareen Zakari.

That's all I have to say.

To be featured on the show.

Pivot at Voxmedia.com.

Oh my God.

read us out.

Today's show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

Fernandefinite engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burroughs.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

There's a new sheriff in town and her name is Farid Zakaria.

That guy's a gangster.

That guy's a gangster.

I'm going back to church.

I'm going back to church.