Pivot Schooled #4: The Big Four, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Columbia University's Tim Wu

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Hi everyone, it's Scott.

Today on the podcast feed, we're going to share an edited version of the fourth episode of Pivot Schooled, our live video series.

This episode was originally broadcast on Wednesday, August 26, and the theme was the big four.

Our guests were Google CEO Sunda Prachai, Columbia University Tim Wu, and the Virgin Silicon Valley editor Casey Newton.

Later in the show, we'll also answer listener questions and make some predictions.

By the time you're hearing this, we've already broadcast a fifth and final live episode of Pivot School.

But if you paid for a ticket, you can watch the video replays of all five episodes at pivotschooled.com.

But now, let's get to Pivot School and discuss the big four.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Pivot School.

I'm Kara Swisher.

Shall I yell throughout the whole day?

Hello, boy.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, Kara.

I saw a guy in your background.

Is it the pool boy from the Fontainebleau?

Is he hanging out at your place now?

No.

Oh, Jerry Falwell Jr.

Holy George.

Oh, God.

Whatever.

No, that is my speaker guy.

You heard

I'm going to be be on the rnc tonight what do you mean what does that mean what is the ironc no i didn't what's that the republican national convention whatever the hell it is i've i've not booked but between now and then i'm going to tweet a bunch of anti-semitic comments and wave a gun at any person of color who walks by boom guest host come on your way

good what would you say what would you say if you had a little moment besides screaming or looking like you might have a drug problem or what what was what would you what would you speak to them if that was your speech i would say that it's important that we endorse the sciences and fund tech such that they can build a cloning machine and a time machine, and we can go back and find us, track us down, kill us, and then commit suicide.

That would be my advice to the people speaking at the RNB tonight.

Yeah.

Oh, all right.

What would be your chosen area?

Since they're using all the federal buildings, even though it's sort of a violation of, it's not even, someone's saying it's a violation festival of the Hatch Act, which they will not get caught for, by the way.

So the press should just,

well, they should be mad, but nonetheless.

So what would you, where, what, what would you pick?

What, what federal building?

The new zealum, the museum that was opened and closed because they couldn't figure out what the hell it meant.

Remember that?

The new zeal?

I would sit my ass on the top of the Washington Monument.

That's what I would do.

Right at the top there.

That's where I would do it from.

A little window.

A lot of inappropriate jokes.

I'm not even going to go there.

I don't even go there.

Anyway, how is your vacation going?

Once again, I have been left alone in regular pivot school, but here you are weekly.

You look rather nice.

Looks like you're ready to go back to school.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to school.

Everything's good here.

You know, kids.

Yeah.

My kids are awful, but other than that, I hate spending time with kids.

So that's been kind of a bummer.

But other than that,

it's fine.

It's been nice.

What have you been up to?

Just things, just creating.

I'm not going to insult my kids on a teacher.

But

he's up in quarantine.

He's going a little batshit crazy.

But now I just realized he may be able to leave slightly early from your New York University quarantine.

We'll see how that goes.

I have been up to building a podcast studio for my New New York Times thing.

That's worked.

I'm working on that.

Booking guests and some really big guests we're getting, which is going to be good.

And

just general working, as I always do.

I don't take the month of August to go to bed.

Just being careful.

Got it.

So there's a lot we can talk about this week.

This is your big, this is is something that based on a book we're going to be talking about, which we've talked about a lot, which is the big four.

You wrote a book, how many years ago?

That was your

that, not your last.

No, I'm not entirely sure.

I don't even, I don't think that way about my work, my IP.

Let me see.

It was,

what was it, three years ago?

Yeah, it was three years ago.

Let me see.

Because I'll told, I've written one, two, three, four, five, two books.

So yeah, it was three years ago.

Okay.

I'm here with you.

Do you remember?

That's why you reached out to me and said, come on our show.

And then this is my favorite.

You told me I was the most down.

You called me and said, you were the most downloaded guest we've ever had.

And we think it was a mistake.

So we'd like to have you back on.

There we go.

I did it.

This is how our relationship got started.

I was like, what could happen here?

What did they think?

It was, I don't know what had happened.

And there it was.

You were, you were, you were not the most downloaded.

Elon Musk remains the most downloaded, but you were near the top.

You were very close to the top.

And

Elon.

You and Elon were up there.

Let me ask you a couple questions about the big four so at the time you were sort of writing about them in a less um

it was it was a simpler time three years ago when you were writing correct you were talking about their sort of different roles and each of the big four had a different personality correct would you go through those very briefly for the people well i mean when i started writing it was five years ago and it started out as a love letter um i i these companies are the number one recruiters out of my class when i started teaching 20 years ago the number recruit one recruiter was amex now it's amazon number two is Google.

I'm economically more secure and more prosperous because of these companies.

The only stocks I've ever owned are these companies or up until that moment.

And it struck me that they had, in a world where you see countries as they get more affluent and educated, a reliance on a super being and church attendance goes down, that each of these companies was tapping into a basic instinct.

And so essentially, you know, as our society evolves, our questions get bigger.

But because we fewer and fewer of us think of a superbing, there's this huge void for an ability to pray.

And what is prayer?

It's sending a query into the universe.

Will my kid be all right?

Symptoms and treatment of croup.

And there is no entity that you trust more than Google.

You trust Google more than a rabbi, priest, scholar, job, boss.

It knows if you have diabetes.

It knows if you're having an affair.

It knows if you're contemplating divorce, your sexual fetishes, and how much money you make.

Google knows more about you.

Google really knows you.

So I think Google's God.

I think as we move down to love.

Go ahead.

I just need need to for recipes, but go ahead and move along.

Move along.

No, it's because you're paranoid.

But anyways, I think Facebook initially held out the promise of love as a species.

One of the wonderful things about mammals is we literally have longer life expectancy and better health when we connect to other people.

And it held out that promise.

Moving down to the gut, the ultimate business strategy is always more for less.

It's the strategy of Walmart, of China, and then Amazon has done a better job communicating that basic instinct that if you go into the cave with us, you're more likely to survive the winter.

That business strategy never goes out of style.

And then finally, Apple tapped into the second most powerful instinct in the world, right behind survival, and that is your ability to signal to the opposite sex or the same sex that you have better genes and that you should mate, and that you are more likely.

I am more likely,

or you are more likely, your kids are more likely to survive if you have sex with someone who carries an iPhone versus an Android, because it means they're wealthier, it means they're storytellers, it means they're the creative class, it means that their genes are more worthwhile.

So you had God, love, consumption, and sex.

And I thought those four things had, you know, were just so powerful.

And then these companies effectively have, you know, dominated those respective, for better and for worse, have dominated those sectors.

And there's never been anything like these companies, I don't think.

All right.

So it was a love letter, has turned into something else.

And we're going to talk about that.

Let's bring some friends of Pivot on to talk about the big four.

First is Sundar Pichai.

He's the CEO of Google and Alphabets when I've known a long time.

Please bring on Sundar.

Hey, Sundar, how you doing?

Good, good, Scott.

Good, Kara.

Good to see you guys.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

Okay, so

let's start with a lot of what Scott was talking about is

COVID, the impact of COVID on all businesses.

Talk a little bit about the challenge in the operations, the consumer base.

You're obviously working from home.

What lessons have you learned from it?

You know, it's been extraordinary.

I mean, like many companies, we've had to literally move most people to working from home.

I think what's been hard is I think people are definitely stretched in, struggling to separate work and home.

If you have parents, two of you working without support, I think, you know, it's been a tough stretch for people, I think, that way.

You know, in terms of future of work, I'm thinking about a lot.

And

I'm worried right now we are doing fine, but it's based on all the shared connections you've built when we've all been working together.

So when we get into the next phase, ideation, building new things, how do you do innovation while we are all set up like that?

That part isn't fully clear to me.

So hoping in the future you have a combination of a more of a flexible workspace.

I think we know now we can work remotely.

So I think you don't always need to pull people five days a week in, people in San Francisco, New York.

commuting two hours each way.

So I do think we can do stuff better, but maybe the future will be in a focused way.

You bring them together for brainstormings and group meetings, ideation, creative faces, and it's a bit more of a hybrid.

So it's exciting to think about that.

But it's

definitely been hot on a lot of people, I think.

And

hoping to get to some sense of normality soon.

Well, one thing is, though, that all these tech companies, including yours, have become more powerful than ever

during COVID.

It's a real delta between your companies and other companies.

Why do you think that is?

And should people be nervous about this?

You know, I've written about this, that I thought you guys were going to come back more powerful than ever.

And Scott just talked about the idea that you all are controlling the fates of a lot of people in whatever sector you're in.

You know, for sure, digital has been a lifeline through COVID.

So that's the, you know, but with that comes the effect you're talking about.

I think people are using services and tech is benefiting from that standpoint.

For sure, they go hand in hand, I think.

I do think some of it will stay.

I think you mentioned telehealth, which is a great example.

I think if you were a normal hospital, maybe before COVID, 2% to 3% was telehealth.

Now it's like 70%.

When it returns back, it's going to be, it's not going to go back to 2%.

So these are some of it is, you know, the trends will last a bit.

And so I do think it's an opportunity for tech.

And, you know, I think that's what we are seeing in the marketplace.

You know, we've always known for a long time, I think, you know, tech, you know, technology is going to be a bigger part of everything.

And I think you see some of that play out more sharply, the e-commerce curve, even though I knew it.

When I see the slide, it's a, you know, it's a bit striking

because it literally looks like you're pulling a decade into this time.

And, you know, we are impacted.

Look, I mean, we are broad-based.

We are impacted.

You know, Scott mentioned this.

We took one of our

toughest revenue hits last quarter.

But having said that, the company is diversified and we have strengths as well.

And so

we are

investing deeply through this crisis as well.

Right.

Scott's going to get a question.

But when I see that slide, I'm terrified of all of you even more.

You know what I mean?

Not you in particular.

Again, as Scott said, you're all nice guys, except maybe one or two of you.

But I'm terrified of that idea of just a few companies controlling the fates

of billions and billions of people across.

How do you answer that?

Away from sort of the, we're trying to do good and we're here to protect everybody from China or whatever the excuse is?

Look, from a few ways I think about it, I mean, through this time, there are other companies which have emerged very strongly too, right?

You know, somebody like Shopify, you know, you can see them or Zoom.

So you see, you know, Tesla has done really well, Netflix has done.

And so I can go through a long list of companies which have done well too.

Also look at it, you know,

from my standpoint, you know, go back maybe 15 years ago, you know, you opened your computer, you opened a browser, Google was the main gateway to information.

I look at my daughter now and she's on her iPhone and I mean, she gets information coming to her from more sources than ever before.

To the extent, you know, you may worry about something different as to, you know, hopefully she's getting the right information and so on.

But it's both, you're right.

I think the big companies are doing very well.

But I do see a lot of emerging companies.

I mean, you've all seen the interest around TikTok, which is new.

And at least I can tell you, sitting on a Monday meeting running the company, it feels like there's a lot coming at us, right?

And, you know, and so you're worried about it, worried about innovating.

You're worried about making sure you're on the cutting edge of things.

You worry whether the next generation is going to

find your products valuable.

So both are simultaneously true.

So I'm not denying or I'm not saying that the big companies aren't

doing well.

At the same time, I see,

I think it's parallel true that there's more choices for information than ever before.

And I see that when I use it, I get my news from Twitter.

You can ask City on your phone or you can ask questions to Alexa.

We know, for example, it's Google, when people look for any products,

many searches happen outside of Google.

And that's been true.

It's an important way we make money.

So all of this is simultaneously true.

So I do think there is concentration for sure,

you know, but there's a lot of competition too.

And, you know, so at least from my standpoint, it feels like both are happening at the same time.

Scott?

So the go-to, I find the go-to, and I think any CEO feels a lot of heat, a lot of competitors from everywhere.

Can you think of another sector that's over $100 billion where one player has a 93% share and isn't regulated?

You know, I mean, it depends on, you know, at one point in time, somebody had 90% share of home pages.

So to me, it's like the railroad versus transportation analogy.

You know, I think it's in the business of providing information.

And there is more information, new apps on your phone.

You go to the app directly.

So search is, you know, you can view it as a market, but that's, it's, it's one way by which people get information.

And I think that dynamic will constantly evolve.

That's why I give the home page example.

When Google started, portals, homepages were the way people primarily had a window to the world of information, but the game changes, right?

And so, you know, I view it as a dynamic.

And, you know, there are companies which are bigger than us, which wouldn't pass that market share.

They may say they have 10% of some market.

So

I think it's, you're right.

You know, we are a popular search engine and we work super hard at that.

You know, we invested $26 billion in R ⁇ D last year.

So the amount of work we do to stay at these search is a lot.

But I think, you know, I gave this example for product searches.

So,

you know, Google is not the way by which people find product searches.

They can click and go to Amazon or Walmart or Target directly and buy the product too.

So the company, and that doesn't get captured in your search share.

So, you know, so that's the sense of competition I talk about too.

So I wanted to make sure this didn't digress into a non-carbonated antitrust hearing.

So I want to shift gears.

And I thought thought the most underreported story, and obviously I have an interest here, was Google career certificates of last week.

And

if I understand it correctly, six months of training from Google in a specific domain, micro-certification after six months, $300.

And the most exciting thing, and I thought the most revolutionary thing, is that Google will value this similarly or with the same equivalence as a bachelor's, and that someone can come into Google at 70, 80, 100 grand a year.

And this is, in my industry, this is, I mean, we've been sticking our chin out, increased tuition 1400%, praying on the hopes and dreams of the middle class.

And I've been saying that big tech's going to come in.

And I feel like this is the first big,

the first big move.

So my question is,

is this CSR?

Do you see this as a market?

What was the catalyst for the decision?

Do you see yourself going into other domains?

Will this be a $10 billion, $20 billion business for you?

Do you see this as a key business line?

or is this just CSR?

Can you give us a little color here?

Yeah, great question.

First of all, thanks for being excited by it.

You know, I almost became a professor of marketing at one point.

I have to tell you that story.

You screwed up when I first came here.

I'm sorry, things haven't worked out for you, Sunder.

You know,

my uncle is a professor of marketing, and it's his home is where I first came.

He's a professor at Carnegie Mellon of marketing.

And so, when I first came to the U.S., he was like, you have to become a professor of marketing.

That's what you should do.

So,

but you know, look, yeah, I've always been passionate about education.

It is amazing to me.

We know, we started the conversation with how much tech is becoming an important part of people's lives.

So, transitioning your workforce to this, to have digital skills and make the transition is going to be important.

I think four-year colleges alone,

I think they are great, but it's very clear from data that for many people, it's just not an option, right, for a whole set of circumstances.

So figuring out, and I know you're doing a lot here, Scott, but figuring out, you know, more accessible units by which you can do it, but you have to match it with making sure that can result in jobs.

So that's where the certification comes.

You know, we are trying to lead it.

You're right.

It started as part of our Grow with Google effort, talking with people.

And so it's more, we are trying to say, you know, as part of this tech transition, there is a clear digital skills gap.

We are trying to lead by example and show it.

We would be happy for others to pick it up and scale it up.

We actually want to see more certification programs come there.

So we are trying to validate, show proof of concept, and show that it works.

But we are not thinking about it as a business opportunity if that helps.

All right.

I'm going to shift us again back to antitrust because we do have Tim Wu here.

But when you're thinking about moving into other areas, that's great.

But

the businesses you are in, and not just you, but Amazon, Apple, and others, we're all at these antitrust hearings.

I know you can't talk right now, you're under investigation

by the government.

How are you preparing for new regulations overall?

Not just antitrust, but privacy legislation.

What concerns you the most?

And what do you think is necessary?

I mean, I know, not that we want to get our regulation tips from the CEOs of all the companies being regulated, but what are you most concerned about?

Look,

a few things.

You know,

I think think rules of the road helps.

And, you know, so even as

a company, sometimes there are spaces where we are in, we are happy to take feedback and do our work differently.

And so

we need to understand the rules of the road.

So the good thing about regulation is to the extent if you feel something is not working and you can adjust it and you have new rules of the road.

It's tough to get regulation right.

you know precisely sometimes regulation can actually entrench companies so if i look at the most regulated sectors uh you know, they are hard to innovate in.

It's tough for a new company in a garage to start up and actually build themselves up.

You know, you've seen the automotive sector or something.

It's been a long time since something like Tesla has come and innovated there.

So I think these are heavily regulated industries.

So there is some concern I have that sometimes it can entrench big companies.

Sometimes it can have the wrong intended effect.

you're trying to achieve something.

A regulation in one place can actually strengthen another big company.

And

we have gone through it.

For example, in Europe and commerce,

we are under regulation.

The market share definition didn't include Amazon and other companies.

And so we've had to make a set of changes.

And so.

you know the question is who benefits from it and so i think it's tough to get good regulation so i you know i think i think gdpr was a good step in the right direction and i think privacy is the area where most of us agree that there can be better regulation and i I think all of us would support it.

But

you're right, you shouldn't take it from big companies alone.

But I think it's tough to get good regulation done.

And so that's what I would worry about at the highest level.

But

I think, no, what I mean is

more philosophically, that's my concern.

You asked me what would my concern be.

I think

to get a good piece of regulation done.

But I do think there are many people in Congress who are genuinely engaged.

And I see smart people, be it on topics of privacy or something, people are engaged.

And so I think I'm hopeful that we'll do the right things.

Well, getting to that, one of the concerns just recently was you and Apple are on the same side for once battling epic games over money made by Fortnite on your app stores, for example.

Explain Google's position on this and what's happening.

This is an example of you both control the mobile app space.

You're it.

And you have developers sort of starting to base camp whether any of them are complaining about this.

Oh, Oh, it's a good question.

It's a complex topic.

Just to give some sense of how, while it looks similar, you know, today,

we don't, we license Android for free.

We don't take a share of the device sales, right?

And we do commercial distribution agreements now for all our services.

So for us, monetizing the Play Store is an important way.

We fund all of Android, and we have to compete against Apple and other companies too.

Few more differences on Android.

We allow other app stores.

So we do allow other app stores.

And in for game developers, you know, within app payments, we only make money when they make.

But I think it's, these are good debates to have.

You know, I think

we think we bring value and we are trying to take some value.

Like today, when we sell a pixel phone or something, we pay distribution costs to it.

Right.

You know, I think we have to pay retail margins.

We pay revenue shared to carriers and OEMs and so on.

Right.

And

so there are business models here, but I think these are good questions, and I'm glad there's a debate about it.

We are trying to find the right balance, and we are in conversations with a lot of our developers.

But I do think there are big differences between the two ecosystems as well.

And, you know, we license Android, you know, open source way free of charge.

Amazon uses Android to ship their tablets.

So our competitors use Android.

And, you know, so it's a very different model as well.

And that's where in some of these conversations, I think,

how do you compete in these?

It is increasingly garden, very expensive to invest in tech, too.

So the R ⁇ D investments that go into these new areas, you know, when we do things like AI and quantum, these are deep long-term investments as well.

So,

you know, I think these are interesting questions to ask about, yeah.

Okay, we're going to get some audience questions.

I'm sorry I didn't ask about quantum, which I will at the very end.

This is a question from the audience.

How would you describe Google's efforts in hardware so so far?

Where should we expect to see those three years from now?

You know, we've been around.

This is a long and winding road for Google.

How do you look at it?

It's a good contrast to the before

question.

I mean, hardware is hard.

You know, there are many spaces where we feel like we are challenging others and we are the small player and emerging and doing better.

Cloud is an example.

Hardware is an example.

You know, I'm really excited about Pixel 4A.

It builds on Pixel 3A, which was one of our highest NPS best best-selling products.

And the amount of RD that goes into building a just a great camera, it's great, it's security, but at an affordable price, it's something we are proud about.

Early traction is early feedback on sales, et cetera, has been very positive even compared to 3A.

So I'm excited by it.

We are very committed to the space long term, but it's definitely

we don't have access to the distribution somebody like Apple has.

They have stores all over the world.

So in the space, it doesn't matter that you build a good product.

That's maybe 40% of it.

60% of it is how can you distribute it and get it into the hands of other people.

So, if you take something like Pixel, it's available maybe in one carrier in the US, right?

And most of it we try to sell online.

And so, we are an upstart in this space, but very committed.

You know, the roadmap looks exciting.

And so,

you know,

we are, you know, I'm excited about the roadmap, particularly next year, because it takes about two to three years to plan for innovations and build it into the product line.

Okay.

If next question.

If broken up in antitrust, how secure is an individual's data?

That's a hypotheticals.

Look, some of the things, part of why we set alphabet

to Scott's points too, is some of the newer areas we are getting into.

We can get into it with the right structure.

So if you take something like Waymo as an example, it is set up independently from day one.

Recently, we raised money, we brought outside investors in so that long-term some of that is possible.

Some of the things we have done over the last 10 to 20 years is truly intermingled with an infrastructure.

So for example, Google Cloud is deeply built on our technical infrastructure, which we built to serve our product.

So the underlying technical couplings are

not.

Because if we have done anything recently, it's been that way for a long time.

But having said that, you know, today, for example, to support data localization requirements,

we do a lot to make sure data is protected in the right way.

So if it's an enterprise customer, it's their data, it's siloed, it's encrypted with their keys so that only they have access to it.

So we have a lot of technical solutions to protecting user privacy and data.

And so depending on what we need to do, we'll work hard.

hard to get it right.

So that's what we would do.

Okay, we have two more questions.

How is Alphabet planning for automation and its effects on society?

And maybe you could dip into some of the AI investments you've been making and with DeepMinds and other places.

I mean, that's a profound question.

You know,

it's interesting to note that pre-pandemic, you know, we have had a decade of automation and we had one of the lowest levels of unemployment too at the same time.

I think that's different from

wage growth.

And, you know, I don't want to decouple the two conversations, but at least from an unemployment standpoint, you know, with a lot of automation over the last many years, you know, we also had low unemployment.

It's kind of important to remember that.

AI, of course, can be different because the change can be very fast.

It can get into areas which previously technology hasn't done that.

So, I do think it's important to worry about.

The good news is AI is going to take some time, you know, so I think it gives us a chance.

And there are areas where I think I take healthcare as an example.

You know, I look at our work we are doing in pathology or diagnosis.

The way I see it is not it's automation.

It's going to,

one, for many people, I think it'll give actually, it will help them spend their time better.

Maybe they will have more time for patients talking to other doctors and the error rates will go down.

B, there are parts of the world in which by having AI, we see this with diabetic retinopathy, we are making helping other clinics in the world diagnose the disease early, which they could have never done before.

So that's the optimistic way I see it playing out.

But look, I mean, we all have to.

These are going to be important societal topics.

And you talked about regulation.

These are the areas where

if technology is very disruptive, we do need to think, ask hard questions and think about the right social safety nets

and the right constructs to support society too.

And I think society will slow down innovation in some of these areas if it is disruptive enough, and rightfully so.

And so I think that's the balance

to debate.

Okay.

Last questions.

I'm going to combine them together.

One is about unity, and the other is about diversity, specifically around what was going on at Google.

The big four, some more than others, played a role in giving a rise to populism.

And on account of how segmented and divided they've made us, to what extent can and will they help reunify us?

And then, secondly, has Google adjusted their company policies post-employee walkout to make their working environment better and more equitable for employees?

So either one, they're sort of in the same genre of how your impact on society.

I mean,

both good questions.

On the second one, you know, we've obviously, you know, I think more than many companies, we've always given our employees a voice.

And, you know, I think we pride ourselves on that.

And

there are many things we have done from that moment.

To give one example of it, you know, we've obviously, for a company of our scale, you know, we've ended binding arbitration, forced arbitration, you know, and our employees today, you know, get the right to choose the avenue they want to proceed.

So that's an example of a change we have done.

We have really made our processes more transparent, fair.

We have internal transparency reports.

We have made specific changes to make sure there's care in the processes when people come up to report something.

And so I can talk about this for a long time more.

On the first question, look,

as a company, for most of our products we build search, et cetera, it's really, you know, this is the essence of what we do in search.

We work very hard to get accurate information and the right information and, you know, and we take that super seriously.

YouTube is an area where we've really focused on here.

Over the last two years, a clear number one goal for the company, for YouTube, has been, what Susan and team have been focused on is around what we call content responsibility.

And we've made many changes in the product.

And more than ever before, if I look at where we see the usage in YouTube, it's around

entertainment.

I mean, it's becoming one of the biggest learning platforms in the world.

I know we spoke about our certification program, but the YouTube is a place where people go to learn.

And while it's informal, I think it's a big opportunity for us.

And maybe we can think about deeper work there as well.

But that's how we think about it.

You know, we haven't gotten everything right.

And anytime, but we learn from it.

And know i think it's important i think as a company for the long term we have to get this right so do you yourself feel responsible for part of it not you know you and the other tech executives do you think they should accept some of the responsibility for it i you know of course i think so i mean these are uh large platforms for inform information and so for example when it comes to elections or foreign interference, etc.

We all have to, you know, we see actors on these platforms trying to do stuff.

We are collaborating better than ever before.

So there's a tech coalition now.

We exchange data.

We collaborate with the government.

So there are many things on which I can point to tangible progress that's been made.

And

so I feel better about it, but there's more work to be done and the work has to be continuous in nature, I think.

Okay.

Sundar, thank you so much.

Scott, go ahead.

One final question.

Yes, final question from Scott.

Sunder, you are the American success story.

My understanding is you came over on a student visa.

Is that correct?

That's right.

Yeah.

And then ultimately decided to become a U.S.

citizen.

So you have the perspective of having been raised somewhere else, come here, decided to become a citizen.

Do you think America's headed in the right direction?

You know, I'm concerned about making sure we are a place where we have had a model which has worked well for many, many years.

You know, it's not, I mean, you mentioned the Manhattan Project.

It was built by

many immigrants, you know, who left other places and came to the U.S.

You know,

it's never changed in my opinion.

You know, I think, but we can't take it for granted, right?

I think you have to earn it every year that you're the best place where the best people around the world want to come.

And the opportunity this country provided me, I think it's a beacon of hope.

And, you know,

I hope we value that and

continue to keep it in that direction.

Do you think it's heading the right direction?

I'm optimistic over the long term, right?

You know,

I think

there is inherently something about our system which wants to, you know, I think on issues like this, I think it'll revert to, you know, America has always been an open country.

And I think, you know, if I were to bet, I would bet in that direction over time.

What would you, as an immigrant, as someone who's seen this, and I know you and I have had discussions about this, what would you say to the Trump administration right now to do?

Is there something, some message you would like to send this?

You're like the perfect example of of uh of of how great immigration can be for our country i mean i've been very clear um be it in uh in meetings i mean today there was an announcement of investment for ai and quantum uh which you know which uh you know glad to see in you know in my conversations and the opportunities i've had i've advocated for basic science funding, making sure there are policies by which we can bring in talent everywhere.

These are things which I've worked for.

for.

So, both publicly and in the right conversations, you know, consistently taken that view.

And I think it benefits the country and it benefits the world.

You know, one of the things I'm very worried about is technologies like AI.

There is nothing called AI safety for an individual country, just like climate change.

And so, the only ways these things work is by globally solving it.

And so, figuring out those connections.

And I think immigration helps towards that.

It helps in the exchange of ideas and people, and I think it brings the world together too.

So,

for a whole set of reasons, I think it's important to get it right.

All right, Asundar, thank you.

I'm so glad your staff is trying to get us to go.

I have just one last little question.

Are you trying to buy TikTok at all, or are you not in that game?

No, you know, we can be a technology provider as a cloud provider, but we are not in the, you know, yes.

So, yes, Essen, we are not.

I'm not agreeing with you.

We are not.

So, it's just Larry Ellison.

Okay.

Larry Ellison and Sacha.

My money is on Scott buying TikTok.

That's what I'm assuming.

Go on.

Go on.

Sunder for Chattanooga.

Listen to us.

Professor of Marketing.

Sundar Vichad.

Next line.

Next line.

All right.

Sundar, thank you so much.

We really appreciate you taking the, especially the extra time.

And thank you for doing this.

And we'll talk soon.

All right.

Thanks, Sundar.

Hey, it's Scott.

We're listening to the fourth episode of Pivot School, which was broadcast live on Wednesday, August 26th.

We're going to take a quick break now, but we'll be right back after this.

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This is Pivot School.

Let's get back to the show for our second friend of Pivot interview, Columbia University professor and total gangster, Tim Wu.

Let's get right to our next guest, who is Tim Wu, who doesn't really need introduction, but let's bring him on.

He is a Columbia University professor, Tim Wu.

Hi, Tim.

How you doing?

Hey, how's we going?

Good.

Good.

So just so you know, he's in rural Pennsylvania, but you look good.

We were supposed to warn people of that.

You may appear blurry.

But thanks for joining us.

So before we talk about the big four,

a question about TikTok.

You recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times called A TikTok Ban is Overdue.

I was surprised by that piece.

So talk about why you wrote that and a little bit about

whether selling TikTok to a U.S.

company solves its problems.

That piece is a broader comment on the Chinese relationship with the rest of the world.

And my basic opinion that is that in the West,

I think we've been just playing the sucker for too long when it comes to the Chinese tech industry.

You know, I got to make it clear that I'm in no way in agreement with Trump's whole idea of villainizing China and saying that they have this conspiracy

to steal everything.

But

you can get a little confused by being anti-Trump into forgetting what good policy is.

And I just think

China bans every single important foreign application in its market.

It won't let any foreign sources of information reach it.

And so if you're going going to have an open internet, I think it should be a little more of a mutual society that you extend the privileges of an open internet to countries that play by the rules.

So that was my thinking in that piece, that we should quit playing the sucker when it comes to China's tech industry.

Okay, Scott, why don't you start?

Professor, so 93% of a $100 billion plus market.

Is there any reason?

Is there any reason in any alternative universe that Google has not been already broken up?

Well, you know, know, I was a little surprised.

You know, Sundar, he was pretty relaxed for a guy who's about to be sued by Bill Barr and

Ken Paxson of Texas.

There's no question that there's a lawsuit coming.

Everybody knows it.

And I hope they have a better defense than the argument that, well,

you know, everyone's looking for information, so we're competing with the phone book or something.

He said it's

a little like Standard Oil saying, well, we don't have an oil monopoly because people like olive oil and their salad.

So, yeah, it's coming.

There's no doubt.

You know, how long it lasts and what happens, that's what we don't know.

So what do you imagine is happening?

What have you heard is happening?

And what do you feel like should happen?

If you were Bill Barr, and I'm sorry to

make you look at yourself in his body, but what would you be doing right now in preparing?

Well, as I understand it, the argument is not whether they're going to file, but how broad the lawsuit's going to be against Google.

And

the debate is between just advertising driven, where Google has a clear monopoly in search advertising, and something a little more broad that has to do with how competitors to Google in their verticals get treated, you know, like Yelp or TripAdvisor or shopping companies.

So I think that's a debate.

I also, I suspect the complaint is done.

Knowing Bill Barr, they've probably done whatever he wants.

It's very strange, by the way, to have the Attorney General of the United States run these, but that's what's going on, according to everything we're hearing.

And I think,

I hate to say this, but I think that

it is a matter of political timing, probably, that

Barr works very carefully with the White House.

So, you know, this is one of these situations where I'm a support antitrust revival.

I'm not too thrilled about Google becoming a potential scapegoat for purposes of a Trump re-election policy, but anyway, that's where it is.

Well, doesn't the advertising drag in Facebook then, or the things around Yelp and others drag in Amazon?

Shouldn't it be a broader investigation of, because both those other companies, or Apple,

have those problems?

That's true.

So

the way it works in the antitrust world is the main agencies divide up the companies.

Actually, they fight over them quite extensively.

And another agency, the Federal Trade Commission, they have Facebook, and they have been just slower, a little quieter.

And I think they have a strong case against Facebook as well.

Actually, I think the strongest case is a case against Facebook.

Scott referred to this earlier.

Facebook was allowed to buy most of its direct competitors over the last 10 years in a sort of serial acquisition campaign, very similar to Standard Oil's, actually.

So I think they're the most vulnerable.

But

the government isn't always exactly rational or straightforward in how it operates.

And so that's a different agency.

And they may sit it out and decide to let the next administration decide, whether that's Biden or Trump, whether to bring the case that would break up Facebook.

Professor, we always talk about antitrust through the lens of it's some sort of punishment.

Whereas, and you're a scholar around antitrust, can you talk a little bit about what happens post-breakups?

I mean, generally speaking,

isn't it a positive for almost almost everybody?

You know, you're right.

It depends a little bit on the company, but Standard Oil, which we've already mentioned twice, the old oil monopolist, they were broken into 36 pieces.

And after that,

suddenly became much more valuable.

It turned out this huge, hulking conglomerate.

You know, everyone in business knows conglomerates are inefficient.

And, you know, if you've hung out at some of these big tech companies, I mean, you did that slideshow, how great they are.

There's also obviously, and like in any giant company, a lot of dead wood there too.

So yes, it's possible that

a breakup could be the best thing that ever happened in terms of value.

In terms of, as you mentioned, the personal domain, you know, does Mark Zuckerberg sit across all of social media?

You know, does Amazon control web service as well as everything else?

You know, they have a smaller domain,

but it might actually better for everyone.

I know it sounds a little weird.

It's like hiring the Justice Department to be your management consultant and break you up for you, but

I see that possibility.

Yeah, we're trying to sell to them as a good thing.

They don't have to be in hearings all the time, they don't have to be seen as evil, et cetera, et cetera.

And then they'd be richer than ever.

But that's how Scott's trying to play it.

But when you looked at those hearings, the effect, this has taken a long time, Tim.

You've been covering this.

You and I have talked about this for years.

What did you think of the most recent one?

And is there anything we heard that day that will come back to haunt anyone?

Yes.

I was most struck less by what people said and more what was in the big document dump because there was a lot, a lot of bad stuff in those documents.

I think it got, you know, everyone likes to show.

You know, you had Facebook, for example, clearly articulating a plan to eliminate its most dangerous competitors,

perceiving that they could replace it.

Obvious, what we call in the law, anti-competitive intent.

You had Amazon clearly indicating it's willing to lose money to put a rival out of business.

So there were a lot of smoke and guns coming out.

Some of the questioners raised them.

Others were talking about bias against conservatives and things like that.

That's what I think came out of it, is that there's a much stronger case here legally than people realize.

Right.

You mean land grab and neutralize caught your eye?

The idea, those words in

emails around competitors so if you had to uh with the doc and there's more documents where those came from i think it's very clear but if you had to rank the big four in terms of who's doing the most good right now and the most harm could you do that or do you feel it's all part of the same

you know who is doing the most good and some kind of cosmic uh cosmic yeah i mean what do you have some terms or you can go through each of them and say what their big problem is from your perspective i mean i could how would i rank them in terms of what i think is their legal risk And maybe

have a little comment on that.

And I mean, it's a little different.

I think actually the most legal risk is Facebook.

I think Facebook, you know, Scott was saying earlier, you know, most of these are good guys.

I'm not so sure about them.

You know, the law likes a villain.

And there's just a lot of documents where Facebook has undertaken deliberate attempts to try to stamp out its competitors in very clear ways, anti-competitive ways, not ways in which are about them being better.

So I think

they're in the most risk.

And I overall still think that they do the most harm.

So I guess my feeling about their contribution to the universe is the most negative.

You know, I think the idea of being in touch with your family and friends is a great one.

And if it were run by an entity that wasn't so interested in maximizing its hold over your attention,

I think it would be a beautiful thing.

So there, I think, are the most harmful.

Let me discuss Amazon next.

You know, Amazon is a big question because

they have, in some ways, followed the script prescribed by 20th century economics, which is consumers over everything.

You know, they have made it their job and you can quibble about around the edges, but they have made consumers a priority.

For them,

the larger question is, well, what about everyone else?

What about what it means to work in the United States?

Are our children going to work in warehouses?

Is there any money to be made elsewhere?

So

that, I think, is the question.

Like, what do you get when an economist has their wet dreams come true and everything is about the consumer and the shareholder?

You know, what does that look like?

And it doesn't look, you know, you get

a lot of stuff.

pretty quick, pretty cheap.

And if you own their stock, it looks pretty good.

But what does it mean to work in this country?

That is, I think, the hardest question posed by Amazon.

What does it mean to sit there and think, what am I going to do with my life?

And,

you know,

so then we move on finally to Google.

And, you know, Google shares, especially with YouTube, deserves a little more of the blame for splitting the country and

catering to people's worst sides than they get blamed for.

Facebook gets a little

too much for that.

They do have some antitrust risk, but not the same

level.

level.

And maybe I'll add, you know, this is going on a bit.

I think Apple, you know, Apple plays to vanity.

Is that a sin?

Maybe.

You know, and the stuff around their App Store, I agree.

I think it would be a better world, as Epic suggests, where you could develop stuff and it was

not necessary to pay a 30% tax to Apple.

So Apple is in this way a little bit of a parasite.

But in terms of sort of, I used to think differently about this, but in terms of, you know, monumental harms to democracy and so forth, to the way we want life to be, I don't quite see Apple in the same category.

All right.

That's great.

That's a great rundown.

All right.

We have questions from the audience.

Two questions.

Will China retaliate if the U.S.

bans TikTok?

I mean, the thing is, China has already retaliated.

What has to be understood?

I mean, China has already banned all the American equivalents of TikTok and of WeChat.

They don't let any important American information reach their citizens.

And I'm not just talking about commerce.

I'm also in trade.

I'm talking about ideas.

You know,

they're cut off.

They are in many ways an outlaw nation, more than people accept or realize.

And I just think

this is one area where I'm vaguely sympathetic to this administration.

I think we've been played for suckers.

You know, I think we've let them have a lot of people.

Can they retaliate more?

How about what could they do retaliating more?

Because you're right, right you're 100 right and their their hegemony hegemony in areas like ai and robotics is really growing i mean it's it's a great question could they steal more trade secrets could they ban more i mean they're kind of at full tilt um and we've just sat there uh you know they could it could turn into a trade war i mean i think it should be a trade war actually that's the thing is we haven't really thought of the internet in trade terms we've just said okay it's fine for them to buy on all their products and export everything here if you think it is a trade issue you're like what on earth is going on here?

So, no, I think it's

just a huge asymmetry already.

All right.

So, last the last question, then Scott may have a final one.

Does the alphabet structure still make sense?

No,

I don't think so.

I

think that

Google has a couple great products and has managed to string along.

I mean, I kind of like that they're able to support a bunch of random stuff.

Some of this reminds me of ATT ⁇ T in its golden age when it held Bell Labs operating.

So in some ways, it's like a, so it makes,

you know, I like that fact of it.

I can't see it making that much sense.

You know, no one really thinks conglomerates are a great idea.

So.

Okay, Scott, final question.

So Professor Wu,

big tech and antitrust gets a disproportionate amount of oxygen.

Can you name another company or another sector that's not in the news where you think the concentration of power is dangerous for for the economy and society?

Yes, I could, I don't know where I start.

I would say agriculture is a big one.

And who are the players there?

You know, Monsanto, who's Suze Merch with a German firm.

There's a bunch of, there's a small number of meat processing companies, Tyson Chicken being a good example.

So these aren't really headline companies.

But if you want to talk about why people in rural areas are so upset and getting starved, they have been squeezed.

You know, the same way Amazon squeezes suppliers, producers,

agriculture, it's the same story of a bunch of really big middlemen who ensure that American farmers are close to impoverished.

They have a terrible deal going on there.

It doesn't get as much.

And, you know, that's where some of this grievance comes that's tearing this country aside.

That's why a lot of Trump supporters are angry about big business.

Yeah.

Pharma is

a second and third.

Pharma, you said?

I'm sorry, I asked you for a second and third.

Pharma?

Yeah, pharma.

And look what I'm dealing with here.

Why is my rural broadband just a series of unmolested monopolies who do whatever the hell they want and

are just melting the ice cube out here?

I think it's infuriating that we've allowed

there to be these

rural broadband across country.

Pharma, let me just add, you know, Pharma, Novartis, just introduced a new drug that costs $2.1 million per dose.

And they got a bunch of people lined up to say this is a very reasonable price, very good for American health care.

And, you know, that is somehow what's become normal in that industry.

I think big tech is very powerful.

But frankly, things are even worse outside this little bubble we live in.

Yeah.

Fair point.

That's a fair point to end on.

Get back to the city, Tim.

Obviously, that's your solution.

Professor Lou, the curse of bigness.

Cable monopolies.

Anyway,

Strunk and White's Elements of Style and The Curse of Bigness are my go-to books when I think, okay, I need to be smarter really fast.

The curse of business.

Don't forget the master switch.

That's right.

The master switch, where

it all started.

Yeah.

All right, Tim.

Thank you so much.

I'm not going to call you Professor.

I'm going to call you Tim.

Tim, thank you so much.

Professor Tim Wu.

He's at Columbia University.

He's a great author.

Thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks, Tim.

All right.

Gosh, he's smart.

Do you like to call each other professor?

Do you go, professor, professor?

Is that a thing anyways?

I know.

Professor Wu has earned it.

That guy's a gangster.

That guy is

all of the great taste, none of the calories.

He's a world-class academic.

He's also a great author.

I love The Curse of Ignite, literally, is one of my favorite books.

He's just, he's like, he's like the Renaissance man.

Let me just say, I want an honorific.

What honorific would you give me?

The honorable?

Wait, I've got an honorific, like Professor.

You're Don, wait, grand dom Swisher.

Yeah, wait, what is it?

Lady Dame Swisher.

Lady Dame of Subaru and Rayman Swisher.

All right.

Go on.

A long time ago.

Hey, it's Scott, interrupting myself to mention that in the live version of Pivot School, we played a game for the first few episodes called No Pressure.

You haven't heard it here on the podcast feed because it was too visual and chaotic to translate to audio.

Our friend Casey Newton, who's the Silicon Valley editor of The Verge and a total bitch in my view, and author of the email newsletter, The Interface, won all three of those games.

Also got great hair.

He's got great hair.

So, for this fourth episode, we decided to say, screw it.

I would never use the term screw it.

I would say something else.

But, anyways, we skipped the game and invited Casey, great hair, on to talk about Facebook, TikTok, and more.

Let's jump ahead to get that conversation right now.

Casey, right now.

I need some more.

Casey, said no one ever.

Anyway, let's talk a bit about Facebook, which is one of the companies you cover very closely in your newsletter.

Talk about your newsletter, the interface.

And just Wall Street Journal had a bombshell day about Zuckerberg stoking fears about TikTok in Washington, which you and I both know he was doing.

Explain that and where we are right now with this company that you and I are so obsessed with.

Yeah.

So, I mean, there's a lot in what you just said.

I write a newsletter four days a week called The Interface that looks at the collisions of big technology and democracy.

And Facebook often leads a lot of those discussions.

Like all the bad things that happen to tech companies happen to Facebook first.

So I spent a lot of time writing about it.

And, you know, the story of TikTok and Facebook this summer has been fascinating because

for a bunch of reasons, and where I would start was, you know, in the middle of this antitrust hearing where we are all,

you know, so eager to see Zuckerberg finally take questions about

sort of his dominant market power, lo and behold, they have a legitimate competitor in TikTok.

You know, kids are spending 80 minutes a day watching this thing, and all of a sudden he is legitimately forced to go out and compete.

So it has really complicated, I think, the story of Facebook and antitrust in a way that maybe we didn't see coming.

Do you think they got acquired by an American firm?

I think if they can figure it out, they will.

When you talk to folks at TikTok, they will tell you the technical challenges of trying to unwind all of that technology from ByteDance in 45 days is insane.

So, I mean, just logistically, it's very difficult.

It's meant to be insane, isn't it?

It's meant to force a sale so that it creates that problem, correct?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, like, this, this is, this is, you know, just classic Trump as chaos agent, right?

Like, it is up to all of us to just sort of live under his whims and his caprices.

And, you know, TikTok would die in the process.

You know, I mean, I am very sympathetic to Tim's view that, you know, the United States needs to take, you know, Chinese social products like this more seriously.

But as a matter of policymaking, I mean, it's just horrifying.

Yeah.

So what do you imagine will happen here?

I mean, there's Larry Ellison's involved.

And, you know, and really, I want to get back to Mark, which I think he's trying to create.

I think Mark started this in a lot of ways, like the nervousness around TikTok, because there's so many other things, I think Tim and I agree that we need to focus.

China on our Chinese policy on.

This is not one of them necessarily.

Or maybe you think it is.

Well, Zuckerberg's argument has been: look, there's probably like the internet has winner-take-all dynamics.

And if you believe that, then you think there's probably only going to be one massively powerful global social network.

And so, in his view, it's either going to be Facebook's products or it's going to be TikTok.

And so, the message that he was trumpeting in Washington last year was, do you want to have a big social network as an agent of U.S.

soft power, or do you want China to have a giant social network that it can do whatever it wants with inside America?

Right.

So, he's tried to position Facebook as this national champion, right?

Which he's done before in lots of interviews with both of us.

So we are just a good one.

Which, by the way, almost never works.

National champions almost never work.

That's one of the things I learned from the curse of business from Professor Tim Mu.

National champions never work out.

Yeah, it's not really my preferred.

Let's all take a friend.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, look, how do I think this works out?

TikTok just filed a lawsuit on Monday.

You know, it is possible that the courts could intervene and say that this executive order, which which is forcing the sale, is not allowed.

But we know that the courts will typically give presidents almost

infinite latitude to do anything if a president so much as says the words national security.

And Trump did.

And so I think the expectation has to be he is going to get what he wants here.

And so the question is, what is a sale going to look like?

You know, I have to say, I would much rather see it go to Microsoft than go to Larry Ellison, who has spent four years licking Trump's boots in a way that is that just frankly smacks of outright corruption.

So I think if Oracle winds up with TikTok, that this will just look like a straight-up mafia deal.

All right.

Okay.

Well then, all right, let's go.

We're going to get to a question from the audience.

But I want to talk about disinformation.

Where are we on that?

And what will happen

if Biden wins?

Is Joe Kaplan out?

And is there danger of them breaking up Facebook and WhatsApp?

It looks like Google's the one really on the hot seat with the government, not Facebook, because they have such an unholy alliance, as Professor Galloway talks about it.

You just asked me five questions like they were one question, by the way.

Which one of them do you actually care about?

Information.

Disinformation.

By the way, Casey, Casey, I am so on to you.

You are not the Silicon Valley editor.

You're the poll boy at the Fontainebleau, and your name is Brad.

I know what's going on here.

I know what's going on here.

I've been proud to be Kara's pool boy for some years now.

But I have no pool, but man servants is how.

That's my big complaint about this place, by the way.

But look, you want to know the misinformation story?

You know, two things are true.

One is Facebook has invested a lot in trying to get bad stuff off the platform, but at the same time, it's the same old story.

It has always been.

You go,

exactly.

You look at QAnon, you look at the Boogaloo groups, right?

And what we see is the same old thing, which is Facebook is recommending groups to people without even knowing that it's doing it.

They grow to unfathomable size, and then we start to see real-world violence.

I mean, you know, QAnon has taken over the Republican Party.

You could argue that they could have done it without Facebook, but it sure seems like Facebook helped just as they helped the Russians in the 2016 election.

So this just continues to be an issue Facebook is having trouble wrapping its arms around.

Yeah, all right.

Now, what happens under our Biden administration?

Joe Kaplan, is he still with us?

The crazy thing about Biden is that Biden wants to destroy Section 230, which is the underpinnings of the internet that you and I love, right?

Our ability to just get on Twitter, say whatever we want.

Like Joe Biden wants to take that away.

Now, there's an open question as to how well he understands the law and how seriously he's going to pursue that if he actually becomes president.

But his stated position is basically: we need to get rid of the internet as we know it today.

And I think most people aren't paying close attention to that.

I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

All right, but what about Facebook?

Because we have a Facebook and Joel Kaplan.

He doesn't know.

He's not doing that.

You know,

I'm sort of working on a story about this right now.

Like, Joel Kaplan often gets positioned as this bogeyman, right?

You read all these stories where, you know, Joel Kaplan appears out of nowhere to intervene and

help out Breitbart here or there.

And, you know, and I believe all of that reporting.

But the thing people forget is is that Mark Zuckerberg's user base is more conservative than the average American and certainly his own employees.

So Zuckerberg has a lot of just customer service reasons to cater to that population that go well beyond, you know, Joel Kaplan whispering in his ear.

So even though he's a convenient explanation for a lot of these things, I think people really miss the real story when they talk about him.

Yes, that's a good answer.

Last question from me, broken up.

Are they in any real danger?

I mean, Tim just said that, that they're in the most legal jeopardy.

How do you assess it?

And I have questions from the audience.

I think if you look to the letter of the law, then yes, I think there's a very good case to be made that Facebook should have to unwind the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions.

The question is just, do you truly believe that this utterly chaotic, corrupt administration

is actually going to go through that process and will win in court?

And that's where I sort of have my doubts.

So I think it is the right thing to do in principle.

I think it's unlikely to happen in reality.

Okay, one question from the audience and Scott.

I'll have a final question.

What's your take on the morning news about Facebook versus Apple's new operating system?

Is it able to block Facebook's ability to merge, to target ads?

It starts an interesting data compatibility war between the two giants, and they have fought before.

They have.

This is going to be the subject of my column today.

So if you want the full take, go to theverge.com slash interface and sign up.

Look, I think there's a lot to like about what Apple is doing.

At the end of the day, they're just giving people more control over the information they want to share.

This is usually what we, you know, people like you, you and me, like argue for, right?

Like, you want people to have control over this sort of thing.

But I do think that there's another view of this, which is Apple is unilaterally setting the terms of the advertising market and no one gets to appeal, right?

So if you want to be sympathetic to Facebook here, you can at least say,

here is once again a case where Apple is abusing its market position, just as it has with Epic and Basecamp and all the other companies we've seen this summer.

All right.

Scott, last question.

Casey, what's the most underreported story in tech?

The most underreported story in tech.

You know, the thing I would point to is

a great piece that Rafat wrote on Skift today about how free Zooms are going to destroy the events business,

which I encourage both of you to read.

And every media business should read.

All of us are getting used to doing this sort of in-person video conferencing, and I think it has huge implications that actually are starting to become clear, right this is starting to become one of the major dividing lines between the the before times and the after times when it comes to covid um he calls the zoom basically the events industry having its napster moment and uh i think we we need to to think a lot more about that because a lot of companies are going to get founded and sold and a lot of incumbents are going to get hurt and maybe destroyed uh because of it wow

so much in hotels and everything so much information and by the way i want to thank

for opening up for me today he did a great job all right.

Well, you were the man of that.

He was the you're you too.

All right.

All right, Scott.

Thank you, Casey.

See you soon.

Maybe not.

Bye.

Bye.

See you in San Francisco.

Okay, Scott, let's answer some questions of the audience.

We are running very late.

So listener mail, first we have a video question.

So let's watch.

What I want to get your perspective on is sovereign risk in the U.S.

We've heard recently that the federal government would like to nationalize the profits of a foreign asset sale with TikTok.

And they've also, of course, talked about banning companies which are disloyal to the central government.

We know this to be the authoritarian playbook.

It's the next chapter we can likely expect in a Trump re-election, that he will take over companies owned by non-loyalists and hand them to friends and allies.

I want to know if analysts are talking about this as a serious risk and whether companies, especially like Amazon, which is currently run by a known non-loyalist of the central government,

is asleep at the wheel in realizing the risk that is coming to them if Trump is re-elected.

Well, that's Clinton Barnes of New York, and he's very jaunty.

I think, you know, Clinton, this is a really interesting question.

I think you're right.

It is the authoritarian playbook to have friends take over industries.

If I had to go, even with another four years of Trump, I think Jeff Bezos will outlast him on every

aspect.

So, if you're going to use that one, I do think he will try to help his friends and hurt his enemies.

I don't think he's particularly effective at it as much as he thinks he is.

And I think it'll get worse in the next administration, because the next administration is going to, if he's the president, it's going to be subject to protests and just constant scandal, I suspect.

And

still, you know,

the people working for him are getting less and less good.

And I'm being kind there.

So I don't worry about it necessarily.

And again, I think Jeff Bezos, if I'm going to use him as the proxy here, is probably

just fine.

What do you think, Scott?

Yeah, the liberal and liberal democracy is that we have institutions that slow down our thinking such that when we make a mistake and elect people who decide to play pretend CEO,

that the courts and regulators can step in.

And if you look at what's really happened, you know, he okay, went after CNN.

I hate CNN, so I'm going to block their merger with ATT.

And the courts said no.

So, look, you're absolutely right, Kara.

Trump versus Bezos is Mayweather versus McGregor.

The redhead gets the shit kicked out of them.

Big tech is the windshield.

And right now, any single politician who tries to circumvent the law is just

a big splat against that windshield.

I'm not as worried.

I think you're smart to be worried, but I haven't seen any evidence that he's been able other than saying picking on Maytag.

I mean, it's just so, it's just, it's almost

comical it's like a bad version of the shark tank

I think um Casey and Tim both talked about Oracle being in this deal with TikTok is that it looks like that for Oracle Oracle looks like friend of friend oh trump

talk about hair plugs on an aging company Jesus Christ

my god TikTok and Oracle yeah that makes sense That makes sense.

Seriously, that's like when I show up wearing my members-only jacket.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

I got a Corvette.

Let's go to the red onion.

Some Lancer's wine.

I used to party with these cool cats in Kuba.

The red onion.

Oh, my God.

What is the red onion?

The red onion?

I don't even know what that is.

That's where the dog used to take dates in college.

$2 Long Island iced teas.

Nine shots of alcohol for two bucks.

That's right.

Do you know how charming I get after seven or eight shots?

No, I don't think you're charming at all after seven or eight shots.

Oh, someone has Silicon Valley in hoodies.

What's the deal?

They don't wear hoodies as much as you think.

Do they?

Oh, Sundar.

Sunder looked so elegant, didn't he?

He looked like Omar Sharif's nephew, who's the ambassador to Rwanda.

He looked like something out of mid-century modern cool.

Was that a hate crime?

Did I do that wrong?

Have I just been canceled on Twitter?

You know, not like.

It was so offensive that it wasn't offensive.

We will because he's

the cancel culture experts on that.

Yes, he is.

He's great.

Yeah.

They just like to wear culture.

You know what I took away?

You know what what I took away from the interview with Sunder?

So first off, and you know my rule, anyone who's famous who calls me and asks me to lunch, I say no, because you know what happens?

And this happened on this episode.

This happened on Pivot School.

I listen to Sunder and I see those sublime shoulders and that cool hoodie and that thoughtful demeanor.

And I'm like, I just like Sunder and I like

we immediately don't we Google as less of a threat.

And then Tim Wu comes on and reminds us what the real world's like, that this is a, these guys are a huge threat.

It need to be broken up.

Do not have lunch with famous people because they're almost very, always very likable and take your eye off the ball.

Okay.

All right.

That's a real, okay, I think.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Sure.

One thing I did note in that hearing, the only person they accused of being un-American was the person of color, which was amazing.

I thought that was.

They used the word American nine times with Sunder.

They used it four times with Zuckerberg.

And the guys that were born in

Alabama and Texas, they didn't bring up the word American.

Yeah, it was really quite striking.

I thought that was wrong.

But you're right.

We should not, just because he has a lovely, elegant hoodie, which they all do.

They all cost $200, just so you know, $300 hoodies.

Could that guy be any more likable?

He's the most...

Okay, I'm losing you, Scott.

Anyway, thank you for everyone who sent in video questions.

Remember to send in video questions for the next week's show.

We have one more thing before we wrap up today's show.

We were going to have predictions really quickly, but Scott has disappeared once again for predictions.

All right.

So now, very quickly, we're going to do predictions, Scott.

You're not out of here yet.

We're very close to being out of here.

Professor Galley, before we get to your prediction, we have another special guest who sent in a video with their prediction.

Let's play it.

Hey, it's Roy Wood Jr., and I'm going to give you my prediction for the Big Ford.

Let's talk about Apple.

Apple is a company that started with a nice, small, and compact iPhone, and then what happened?

It started getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

And now we have an iPhone X Plus XLRR, R R, whatever the hell, that's basically close to the size of an iPad.

But now, if you see what's happening, Apple's offering smaller phones now to say that they're more affordable.

But what they're really doing is making everything small again.

They're going to be the first company to go from small to big, back to small, and make us buy everything a la carte.

Because the first thing that they're doing now, because everybody's going to the universal charging ports now, I think the USB-Cs, they're called.

Apple is not going to include a charger, or at least that's the rumor.

They're not going to include a charger with the next version of the iPhone.

So now you got to buy the phone, then you got to go buy a case, then you got to buy a charger.

Then you know the next thing they're going to do, they're going to separate the cord from the plug.

So now you got to buy an iPhone, do you got to buy an iPhone plug?

Do you got to buy an iPhone core?

How soon today are just selling us the glass, and then you just got to assemble your phone at the house by yourself like a damn puzzle?

That's where we're headed.

All right, I got to go check on my child, man.

That was Roy Wood Jr.

That was Roy Wood Jr., great stand-up comedian and correspondent for the daily show.

All right, Scott, he's very funny.

What's your prediction?

Very quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, please.

Trillions of dollars in shareholder value being moved to the home, connected devices, Peloton or Sonos acquired by the end of the year.

Oh, that's a big one.

What do you can't just drop that and run?

By whom?

By who?

I'm usually wrong.

Each of them.

The really, the obvious acquirer for Peloton would be Apple.

Yeah.

Okay.

I actually, I think the gangster move here would be Netflix to acquire Spotify and then acquire Sonos and have vertical distribution.

They'd have content on the back end.

They'd have

and then they'd have a distribution with a device.

And both Netflix and Spotify need that.

Just Sonos is $1.4 billion.

It's just so ripe.

It's the apple of sound, if you will, in people's homes.

I have someone waiting to finish setting up my system today.

It's a great brand.

It just seems to me just to be so ripe.

And Peloton, the connected, the workout from home space, think about literally, think about the

sweating industrial complex has literally collapsed, but people are working out more, which means there's going to be an unbelievable transition in shareholder value and who's sitting there is kind of the coolest brand.

By the way, the MPS score is another prediction.

Peloton, Peloton, you know what their business they're going to get into?

Dating.

They have a rabid community of like-minded fitness people.

They'll start, they'll call it something and they'll get into the, they could put Tinder out of business peloton dating well that's interesting because i am in love with ally love yes you're right i love peloton i love the product more than anything i've owned it a long long time and i know i'm an elite person but it's the most satisfying product i've owned in a long time thank you dom swisher

lady dom swisher dame all right scott uh next week is our that's all we have today for pivot school next week our final episode of pivot school we'll be talking about education and recovery our friends of pivot will be the president of howard university nearby my house here uh Dr.

Wayne Frederick, and he is amazing, and the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Austin Buetner.

This is happening on Wednesday, September 2nd.

Education is a big topic for Scott and for me too at 1 p.m.

Eastern.

You can send in a video question for next week's episode to schooled at voxmedia.com.

We really appreciate it.

We're sorry you went long today, but really we don't.

We're not sorry.

We're not sorry.

But Scott, that was a really good prediction.

We're going to talk about it later.

And Scott will be back on the main show next week.

But this week, we have Barratundi Thurston, who's a guest, who's our guest host, and we're having a lovely time without you.

But I miss you and I can't wait to get back.

I can't believe I just said that publicly.

Shoot.

Anyhow, Scott, you're frozen again.

You're frozen again.

So leave it with that.

All right.

Thank you, everyone, for coming.

We really appreciate it.

And we'll be back next week.

Good.

Scott missed my

little love letter to him.

And that's all he's going to get from me.

All right.

Thanks, everyone.

Saucy Minks.

He didn't hear it.

you didn't hear it it never happened bye everybody okay all right thanks everybody

thanks so much for everyone who joined us live for pivot schools remember that if you paid for a ticket to the live show you can watch the video replays of all five episodes at pivotschool.com and more importantly i am surrounding you with white light that's worth a lot you can also buy pivot school twag at pivotschool.com slash shop