Facebook pushes e-commerce business, Uber in trouble, eyes on Amazon Media Group… and a prediction: Sonos gets acquired

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hi everyone this is pivot from the vox media podcast network i'm kara swisher and i am nauseous you're going to the new york times to do a podcast that's literally right for the new york times this is just an extension of our

our relationship that that's like msnbc ate bernie sanders and then threw up and created this monster called the New York Times podcast with Kara Cruz.

This is just it's gonna be lit.

Let me just say.

What's it called?

What's it called?

It's called I Love Scott Galloway and Other Stories of My Life.

Yeah, no.

It has no name.

It has no name.

It has no name yet.

It is unnamed.

Remember how we named Pivot?

So you know what we are?

How did we name Pivot?

How did we come up with a name for Pivot?

You came up with a name.

I didn't like it.

I wanted to call it Stable Genius.

Oh, yeah.

That was stupid.

And you said no.

Yeah.

Because it was stupid.

But go ahead.

There's that.

Yeah.

And then, oh, wait, so wait, back to us.

So did you ever see the movie Broadway Danny Rose with Woody Allen?

A long time ago.

I don't try.

Woody Allen gives me the creeps.

So no.

Well, I think he gives everyone the creeps now.

But anyways, back when he was just,

but I don't remember.

Yeah, before he was sleeping with a stepdaughter or whatever it was.

So anyways,

that's about an agent, this kind of tier two agent who represents this lounge singer who hits a big.

And the moment the lounge singer hits hits a big he drops his agent

you and i are are are have decided to use vox as woody allen and then the moment we get a little scotia fame just a scotia fame you go to the new york times which i tell you

i go to i go to vice because ad supported linear tv is coming back bartender netflix

didn't call back let's make that a t-shirt netflix didn't call back why vice guess netflix didn't call us back guess what if we do a tv show now netflix will call back because kara swisher has

TV show.

Have you seen us?

We're looking at us right now.

This is not TV.

I got rained on today, so I look like a wet dog.

But we look like the only TV we're going to get is we look like the opening

scene of Law and Order when they show the dead people.

You and I look like good victims.

Yeah, and then Jerry Orbach standing over us speaking.

My friends have been calling me and saying they saw the piece.

By the way, I'm doing a show called No Mercy in a Mouse Bonweis.

And they're like, I don't even know where to watch this.

Neither do I.

Linear, linear ad-supported TV.

It's coming back.

Bartender, get me my horse.

A white guy.

Get me my horse.

It was a white guy ranting.

It's just, that's what you said, right?

It's just what.

Oh, my God.

It's hilarious.

Listen.

Ad-supported television.

It's making a comeback, Carol.

Here's our relationship.

You are naughty and like.

you know, vicey, and I class up the joint and it works well.

That is what's happening here.

And I'm trying to further class up trade.

By the way, we're still doing pivot with Vox Media at New York Magazine, which we love.

And I got to tell you, Pivot is a big

has money legs, not just your beautiful legs, but many legs.

And then, and then I'm money legs or many legs.

Many, lots of legs.

It has legs.

It has legs.

I'm trying to use a Broadway term, whatever.

And then, secondly, I'm still doing the code conference when we have to, we're moving it around and deciding on different things.

And you and I are going to do events.

So just relax.

Everything,

we are tethered together on this ship and wherever it goes, down, up,

Hawaii, we're together.

So don't worry about it.

I get it.

So, but I am.

I'm just dating the New York Times on the side.

You didn't ask me, you didn't ask me to ask this, but what's going to be different about your podcast at the New York Times, other than Michelle Obama will come speak to you at the New York Times?

Oh, that's one of the things.

What is different about it?

That's one of the things.

I'm going to really, I've been expanding Rico Decode.

It's been mostly focused on tech.

And I really am very interested in the ideas around power, who has it, what it means, how power is changing,

putting a lot of attention on power in different forms and not just the traditional forms like the big giant evil tech companies kind of idea.

Um, but that what is power and what should it be, and how should it change?

You know, I think post-coronavirus, we're all going to be rethinking lots of everything about our lives, and so I think power is always used in this way that I think is not so.

So, I want to bring to light a lot more a wide-ranging things that I don't do in a tech podcast.

I, you know, I have been doing regulators and politicians and some entertainment people, but I really want to dip heavy into cultural stuff, into ideas, academics,

going directions that is a little bit more.

But power would be the thing I would say is

what I'm, what is power?

Thank you.

That is what I'm going to say.

By the way, at the New York Times, there are a bunch of perverts and freaks.

You know that, right?

There are some dirty little meanses over at the MIT.

Scott,

that's why they will never let me bring you in the building.

I know you've been there before and got tossed out summarily, but here's the thing.

I did get tossed.

You got the right right word, Tossed.

By the way, you know what I love about Vox?

What?

They didn't take any, they didn't apply for PPP.

Unlike those bitches over at Axe.

They gave it back.

They gave it back.

Because they were shamed into it.

We're going to find out that about 30,000 or if not 3 million organizations who, instead of dipping into the wealthy investors' pockets, instead of forcing their millionaire owners to actually

buck up and turn and maintain our, you know, we need a nation of soldiers, not little bitch companies.

We're going to find out that PPP call them little bitch companies.

I'm serious.

PPP is made off times a thousand.

This is going to be one of the biggest scandals as we start to uncover.

There's so much money.

How can there be?

There are private schools.

There are private schools in Santa Monica taking PPP that have the wealthiest parents in the world.

There are,

it is striking the level of graft we're going to see.

I have a friend.

Graft in plain sight.

It's different.

It's not fraud.

It's just sort of like.

But it's like anything else.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste to a certain extent.

You have to admire the Trump administration.

It's like, I know, let's take the future generations of

every person right now and borrow money against them to get the current rich richer.

Yeah.

And flatten the curve of the decline of wealth of wealthy people.

This is all we do.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

I like your whole, I like when you go into this mode.

But listen, before we're going to get started on other things, but just the message we want to give, because a lot of people on Twitter were confused, that pivot isn't going anywhere.

Pivot is saying it is getting bigger.

We're working on all kinds of stuff.

I should so be your last guest.

I should so be your last.

I mean, let's really burn the bridges.

Let's burn the bridges and reach out.

Done.

Salt in the ground behind me.

And done.

Sorry, Eric Anderson, but that's happening.

Okay.

All right.

Let's go ahead.

Sorry.

Vote for Pivot.

for the Webby Award for Best Business Podcast.

Voting is open till May 7th.

We are in.

We're talking a lot about Pivot.

We should probably give the people.

I know that, but I'm just saying we want to win because we're super insecure and we need more awards.

That's really the situation.

Anyway, let us start on stories.

We'll get eventually to Elon Musk's thing, Free America Now.

How about imprison Elon?

I'm starting it.

I'm starting it.

Don't.

Incarceration.

Let me just say.

All right.

Oh, yeah.

He's scary, right?

Let's talk about our favorite supervillain, Mark Zuckerberg.

Call.

Let's move supervillains over.

Wednesday night, despite declines in ab revenue in March, Facebook beat expectations, bringing in $17.7 billion in revenue in the first quarter.

That's up from $15.1 billion a year.

That's impressive.

On the earnings call, Facebook said usage is up due to the lockdowns around the globe.

Messaging has risen about 50%.

Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg positioned small business front and center at the call and the importance of Facebook and their economic recovery and encouraged them to build digital presences and storefronts on Facebook and Instagram.

Zuckerberg also talked about the importance of their geo investment in India and converting bricks and mortar to e-commerce capabilities on WhatsApp.

Talked a lot about WhatsApp and the untapped monetization.

And the company isn't providing any revenue guidance for Q2.

It was, you know, all of the stocks of tech companies are up.

I was just

looking at all the stocks.

They dipped, of course, except for Amazon, but they all dipped and now they're headed back way up.

Any surprises about these earnings?

What do you think about this?

What do you think about what's happening?

All the surprises are just incredible.

There's now, I mean, think about this, there's 3 billion people using one of their or all of one or more of their apps.

So there has never been a religion, an economic construct, a nation, a flag that has ever been as

big and as powerful as Facebook.

There are more people that have a relationship with Facebook than Jesus, Allah, communism, capitalism, whatever it is.

It's bigger than any continent at this point.

And their ability to find new ways to monetize is striking.

And in addition, that there's this notion of,

I'm trying to understand more about time.

So, time is based on the notion that there was this little dot and then it exploded.

And all time, supposedly before that, there was no time, which is hard to imagine.

Yep.

That basically time is a function of motion now, right?

The moon rotates around us every 24 hours.

We rotate around the sun every 365, but it's days, but it's linked to progress.

I like Stephen Hawking, Scott, but go ahead, keep going.

Oh, this is such a joke, Bag of Donuts version of Stephen Hawking.

Go ahead.

Anyways, but this notion of time as it relates to progress and motion, and I think that during periods of crisis, for some people, time stands still, and for some people, it accelerates in terms of their progress.

And while every media company in the world, with the exception of Facebook and Google, is trying to figure out how many people they furlough, how they do chapter 11 again, if you're a radio company, Facebook is accelerating time around progress.

Everyone else is trying to stop time.

Everyone else is trying to say, okay, we don't want time to come forward because every day we're losing money.

So we're trying to delay time.

We're trying to push off the inevitable.

Whereas Facebook is doing deals in India to monetize WhatsApp,

they are absolutely playing offense.

And think about if you're a marketer.

and you want to do print or TV.

You can't do print or TV right now.

Where do you go to do a print ad right now?

Where do you go to shoot a television commercial right now?

Where do you, if you're at WPP or any of these firms, all you're doing is talking about triage.

Like, how do we save?

How do we fix things, right?

Yeah, how do we, and then whereas Facebook, if you want to, if all of a sudden you're making face masks and selling hand gel, well, how do I market it?

I go on Facebook or Google and I can have ads running in 60 minutes.

So it's just,

we're in what I would call until about a week ago, we were even just 48 hours ago, what this earnings season marks is it marks a transition from the pandemic portion of the crisis that was crisis to consolidation.

And that is now these companies are starting to consolidate their markets.

They're going in, they're going for the jugular.

You're going to see them swoop in and hire the best people from old media companies.

You're going to see them play offense.

You're going to see them do deals.

You're going to see them establish new relationships from the holdouts that were still spending money on other, you know, on Yelp or wherever it was.

And then you, or on BuzzFeed, and you're going to see the percentage of digital marketing dollars from Facebook and Google go from 61 or 62 cents to 72.

And as the wind, the wind is going to return into even bigger sales.

And they have money, they've got, they can get talent, they can do everything.

This is, you know, it'll be interesting.

What I think is the most interesting part of this is the competition between these giants, you know, as they move into each other's businesses.

You know, Facebook and Amazon and e-commerce and entertainment,

you know, they're all, of course, making Zoom copies, which is that's the other danger.

Now, luckily, they're getting bad reviews.

The Google one is doing one, Facebook is doing one.

Have you tried the Facebook one?

Have you heard anything about it?

No, I haven't.

I just, it's what I've seen, none of them are getting good reviews.

The Google one, particularly, is getting slammed.

And, you know, they weren't doing it for the longest time, and then now they're doing it.

It's just, they're like a big, they're waving a red flag in the face of regulators.

Like, now that Zoom has got this, we're going to grab it.

It shows like, oh, like they sort of like giants that suddenly, oh, look over here.

Here's one piece of a piece of gold I haven't picked up.

I need to pick that one up too.

100%.

It's Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer for free as opposed to, and what is, what is Facebook doing?

They're like, well, we don't have a better product.

I know.

Let's offer it for free and take advantage of our incumbents and our monopoly power.

Yeah, they have some issues around dial-in.

They don't let anyway, you know, it's not free.

Free ain't free at any of these services.

And they would be, I would stick with Zoom in a second.

The question is, will Zoom get bought?

Or, you know, at the price, it won't, of course, because it's

not at this price.

But, you know, they, they, they they literally can go anywhere they want now and the question is you know if you go to each of them you know facebook and google will accelerate in advertising and move into commerce uh amazon will accelerate in in cloud so will microsoft just the acceleration rate for these companies is so massive and the the idea that they're going to be regulated is has diminished considerably even though there's some noise out of uh but you know look at this this ftc thing we talked about um you know it just is, there's not a lot in their way.

The highway is clear for them.

And everybody else is sort of has broken legs, essentially, and can't really, they can't even, they don't have cars.

They don't have anything.

And everyone will be struggling.

And these companies will rush into the breach, whether it's retail, advertising.

So what do we do now that we have the power shifting to the New York Times and Kara Swisher?

What do you mean?

We start to say nice things about Facebook.

No, we start to discuss this, what power is, and really give backbone to people who are regulating these companies and who are

that they're and citizens, the idea that citizens do have some ability.

There is the governed and the governors, and they are not elected governors.

And, you know, whatever you think of any of these people, they were elected.

Like, whatever side you're on, they were elected.

And you can talk about like difficult elections or voter fraud, but on the whole, this is an elected, these are elected officials, and therefore

they deserve to have the power.

And so, the question is: will they be, you know, when you when you combine

this financial might,

the might they have with the power over data, with the power over technology, with the power over talent, it's just,

it's mind-blowing what they could do coming out of this.

I mean, I know

they are doing and they will do it.

It just accelerates existing trends, but it truly accelerates them because it gets, it sweeps stuff out of their way.

So

the other ones that are coming are Apple and I think Amazon today is Amazon.

Amazon's today yeah what do you expect from them well i'm already skipping well i already kind of i'll make another prediction but i skipped my prediction i think amazon becomes the second most valuable company today i think that their earnings i mean look at the business they're in we we didn't okay obviously e-commerce cra we know that's going to be crazy up it's just a matter of how much crazy up aws is probably going to see a surge in activity the thing that people don't talk about What's the fastest growing media company over a billion dollars in the world right now?

It's Amazon Media Group.

So Amazon Media Group is now, it's soon probably going to be one of the five biggest media companies in the world.

I'm not talking about Amazon Prime Video.

I'm talking about Amazon Media Group, where you buy ads such that once you have Huggies in your basket,

PNG can advertise Pampers and say, no, look over here.

And it becomes impossible.

The in-store shopper marketing, if you will, is a bigger business than advertising.

And Amazon's about to make it a bigger business than almost every digital media company with the exception of facebook and google so it just doesn't whether it's e-commerce whether it's cloud whether there are more more households have a relationship with prime yeah go to church or have a pet or decorate a christmas tree

so

biggest cable company biggest fastest growing media company fastest growing cloud company fastest growing e-commerce company fastest growing or most competent back-end fulfillment logistics company in the world so look tonight post post-earnings, and it's always dangerous to make these calls, Amazon becomes the second most valuable company in the world and it's marched to being the most valuable company in the world within the next year, if not the next 90 days.

But you could see Amazon add the value of Boeing at 4.01 p.m.

today.

I think the earnings and the, I think the earn, it's going to be almost scary to listen to the earnings call tonight.

Scary.

Let me read you a quote of that.

This is part of a column that's about to go up in the Times.

But in the time this, after this crisis is over, I can can say that I fear them more because they will be more unfettered than ever, with much less pushback on them from regulators and politicians that had been building decent momentum before coronavirus.

Instead, it has accelerated their speed and tightened their grip on our lives.

And this kind of consolidation of power, combined with a stronghold on data, automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, media, advertising, entertainment, retail, and even autonomous tech is daunting.

It's daunting.

Daunting.

Well, look,

I think Biden,

his VP, especially if it was Elizabeth Warren, I think one of them.

That's the only thing that'll do it.

Warren is VP.

I think

Warren's the only one that's knowledgeable enough and can even speak articulate enough to it and isn't afraid of these guys.

Everyone else is afraid.

Warren.

But I think it's almost a presidential platform to say that the best way to ensure we don't step towards tyranny, the best way to restore income inequality, the best way to bust out of this dangerous cycle of the gross idolatry of innovators, the best way to ensure the stock market continues to go up and that our innovators and true engine of growth, small business is oxygenated

would be a breakup.

We are tripling the budgets of the DOJ.

I know I sound like

a business crisis.

I think they're not going to do it.

I don't think Biden has

the set to do it.

Anyway, in any case, we're going to take a quick break.

And when we get back, we're going to talk about things that aren't doing so well, Uber and how they're faring these days.

Spoil alert, not well, as you know, and a listener mail question.

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Welcome back, Scott.

It's Kara Swisher, who works for everybody.

Uber is reportedly on the brink of laying out.

You are so easy.

Seriously.

What is the definition?

I mean, you are

literally like.

I like myself.

I don't know.

I'm not going to apologize for you.

Other than Fox, who don't you work for for Fox?

Oh, I'm not working for Fox.

And that is a no-comment on that situation.

Because you already worked for them.

I don't.

You already worked for Newscore.

I did.

I worked for Murdoch.

I spent a lot of time with him incredibly.

It was interesting.

It's kind of fun to be a little bit dirty, isn't it?

I go on Fox everyone, so I would

not happy with that period of my life.

Anyway, Uber is reportedly on the brink of laying off 20% of their employees as the company's CTO steps down.

He's a really interesting person, that CTO, by the way.

The information was the first outlet to report that the company is planning tiered layoffs that result in letting go of 5,400 employees.

Wow.

Separately, Twan Phom, who is really interesting, he's the chief technology officer stepping down.

The company announced this week.

Uber's CEO, Dara Khosrashahi, said that its bookings in most major cities was down by as much as 70%.

But the company has seen recent gains with Uber Eats, obviously, even as Lyft has tried to launch a food delivery service, which you really can't do in the middle of a pandemic.

But will this be enough to keep Uber afloat through the pandemic downturn?

Scott, what do you think of rideshare?

I haven't been in an Uber for months, for months, I guess, or two months, a month and a half.

This is the first year Uber and Lyft were publicly listed companies.

So.

Yeah, right.

Well, look, ride-hailing, it's ground zero for, you know,

this is the good news is they can variabilize down their cost structure.

I think a lot of people are looking at ride-hailing and saying, okay,

is this,

should this be a static, ubiquitous part of our society?

Should 30-year-olds who make a good living but not a great living be taking suburbans to the airport should they be should there be kind of a swarm of people turning on their phone because they don't have minimum wage protection at their job much less this job there's a lot of flexibility there gig work works but should we be putting them in this construct that is effectively a payday loan where they just borrow against the value of their car in the form of deferred maintenance have we set up the ultimate hunger games where the people at headquarters split the value of Ford and General Motors until the stock decline?

Now it's just the value of Fiat Chrysler.

I think Uber survives.

Lyft goes away or gets acquired.

Maybe Uber consolidates them, but Uber is going to, as it should be, it'll survive.

It's a great global brand, great execution.

Uber Eats has now got new life because of what's going on.

They'll get some money.

They'll get money.

Like Airbnb.

Like Airbnb.

It'll just be a shitty stock to own, and they're going to be a fraction of their former selves.

And people are going to rethink in a new world with consumer confidence way down.

Should 28-year-olds be taken off the subway and put in cars roaming around?

It's just going to stay in Uber.

I think the trend is useful.

I find Uber useful.

I don't, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't use it as much as I, when I used to.

I used it more in San Francisco than here because they have better public transportation and I happen to like it.

But I do think, and there's now scooters and other choices, some of which are owned by

Uber.

And some of the bikes, which are really helpful.

I'm going to be trying out a couple of electric bikes in the next couple of weeks.

But it's,

I think it's not, you're right.

It's going to be a smaller version of what it was.

And the Uber Eats, you know, Amazon has been in this food delivery business.

The others have been eating around the edges, so to speak.

But, you know,

people like Uber Eats, but I've been using caviar.

I've been using Grubhub and stuff.

I like caviar too.

Yeah.

It has the best restaurants, I have to say.

It has really good restaurants on it.

I think it's sort of the fancy version, you know, for some people.

They do a nice job.

They do.

They do.

They're great.

Their app is great.

But I suspect the issues around all these things is the amount they take from these restaurants, which is, you know, I think is really daunting for a lot of restaurant owners.

But I do think you're right.

Smaller, it'll be.

I don't know, maybe it won't even be public anymore.

I mean, sometimes, you know, if it's sort of in this sort of shitty zone of stocks, what does that do?

Yeah, but still a take private on Uber would be huge.

And typically companies get taken private when they're profitable and they want to layer on debt to finance the acquisition of ongoing private.

It'd be hard to imagine somebody

financing the take private of Uber, given that even at this point, I'm thinking of one person who would take advantage of this.

Sun, Sun.

Because he is in all of them.

I always used to think he was going to consolidate all of them globally in order to finally make money.

But can you see the Saudis in him coming in here?

And like they have pieces of Didi, they've got pieces of Ola, I think.

He's got pieces of all of them.

And so I'm not sure about Lyft.

Maybe he's even in Lyft, but I just think a global ride sharing business with delivery attached to it and other things.

So why?

What economies of scale do you have other than brand out of rolling?

You have Didi and grab and all those.

Brand.

Brand.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know.

I think right now, I would bet Moss.

There's probably logistics and computing above them all.

I think Moss and Piff right now are probably, they've had their eyebrows singed so badly.

Oh, he's going right back in.

I think.

You don't know him.

I think he's like, what can I?

Yeah.

You know, you saw the Saudis buying a piece of Live Nation.

They're going to, this is like, people with money are going to leap in here and get, I mean, if you had bought into Facebook or Apple or Amazon about a month ago, you'd have done rather well, especially Amazon, because they all dipped like crazy.

And then Amazon's up 30% this year.

Yeah, today.

That's I mean, so

you would have done rather well and i think a lot of people with cash like the saudis are going to just jump right in there um but so so lift what you think lift will be gone just gone just gone lift doesn't have the brand i mean it has all the all of the calories and none of the great taste of uber it's you know ride hailing is a menace to society it's bad for the environment it it absolutely um accelerates income inequality It takes people off of transportation and reduces the need to make the requisite investments in long-term thinking around infrastructure and investing.

But it doesn't have the global brand.

Yeah, it doesn't.

It's only in the U.S., right?

Yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't have the scale.

It doesn't have Uber Eats.

It doesn't have Uber Freight.

So I think Lyft is mostly.

Why would Uber buy them?

Why would Uber buy them?

Oh, just for scale and to get rid of a competitor.

You know, you just overnight, you're the only game in the town.

Well, that's what's interesting here.

Is this consolidation or is this Cosmo and Urban Fetch, right?

Where it just becomes such a bad business and it starts a downward spiral.

But to your point, there's still a lot of wealthy people.

I love, I absolutely love Uber.

I spend two to three thousand dollars a month

on it, and I hate myself for it.

I think it's the price.

It's the price that's going to change.

And I think that's an issue.

Now, it's interesting, ironic, that you were talking about, you know, the damages that these ridesharing services, because John Zimmer was the guy who was the CEO president.

He talked a lot about sort of the saving of the environment early on when I met him.

And he was, he kept talking about 80% of the car is in use.

And it was started in a much more hippie, hippie sort of style, that company, and had that, had that, has that reputation and has that vibe compared to sort of the death star that was Travis Kalanik at Uber.

And so it's interesting that, you know, again, lovely guys,

much

less aggressive than Uber was, but you're right.

I think

they've got a lot of, that's a tough business.

But you were zeroing in on the thing here.

And that that is if a company has a lot of negative externalities associated with it as it relates to society, if they are resulting, if their workers aren't making enough money, then it's simple.

You tax them and you enforce minimum wage and employee, not contractor standards.

And Uber goes on to be a great company that's only worth Clorox, not worth General Motors.

So it can be fixed.

It's a great service.

And then they'll have lots of drivers.

Then they'll have lots of drivers' ability as long as they, I think they'll be be pressured to giving them rights.

I think this, uh, that they will have to treat them that way.

So costs will go up, but they will also have a bigger pool of drivers.

Right.

And better.

It'll be a, it'll be a smaller, more, I would call just business.

And okay, that the, what is it, 16,000 people at headquarters now don't make as much money on their stock options, but there's a redistribution of some of that, some of that

income security to their drivers.

And quite frankly, riders should be paying more.

So there just needs to be a redistribution of stakeholder value here things to come at uber i'm sure dara kosrashahi did not think this is what he signed up for he was already you know he thought a very different scenario here anyway we've got a listener mail scott you've got you've got i can't believe i'm going to be a mailman you've got mail

hi kara and scott this is derek from new zealand Some countries such as my own and others like Australia and Germany are starting to get this crisis seriously under control while America doesn't have in place the testing and contact tracing that successful countries say are key to their progress.

What would you do to protect the international brand of America after not being able to handle this crisis as well as others?

Are there any equivalents to this situation in business?

Does America need to pivot?

Oh my God, we just got dunked on by New Zealand.

What the heck, Derek?

By the way, let me just say

it's a nation of not that big a nation, but Jacinda, it's 5 million people, I think.

Jacinda Ardern has done like incredible leadership there.

And again, it's a smaller country.

It's more, there's more land and everything else, but nonetheless, they've done a great job.

And so has Germany under Angela Merkel, who I would be dating if I could.

But

that's a twist.

I wasn't expecting that.

I wanted to add that in there.

No, I love it.

I love Angela Merkel.

You love Angela?

I love her.

I love Jacinda Ardern.

I love all these lady leaders.

I mean,

PhD in quantum chemistry.

I would love to see her.

I will put her on my new podcast.

I will have Angala on.

We will have a ball.

We'll drink.

Versus Fordham attendee Donald Trump.

He doesn't talk much about his ears at Fordham.

He would love to have Donald Trump.

He'd never, he'd never sit across from me.

Anyway, Angala.

Angala.

But here's the deal.

Does America, oh, I love their accents, but they just dunked on us.

So what do you think, Scott?

If you were in charge of brand U.S., what would you do?

And

what would you do?

How do you rebrand the United States?

Mr.

Marketing Professor Man?

Well, in the short term, it's all about we screwed up, but we're in the seventh or, you know, we don't know if we're in the second inning or the seventh ending of this pandemic.

And regardless, the key to restoring our brand in the short term

around, you know, and trying to dial down the gross incompetence.

I mean, there's a couple of things.

One, a brand is you want to do your brand image, the positives and negatives, and then say what negatives are getting in the way of us reaching our aspirational

brand identity.

Right now, we have this incredibly negative brand image that is what we are, and that is we are grossly incompetent.

Well, that's not really a branding event, is it?

Well, that's my point, but it's part of our image.

So in the short term, all we need to do or all we have to do, or all we should be focused on in the short term, is dialing down this association of gross incompetence that this administration has levied across a nation of 6% of the people that now has a third of the deaths globally.

As far as we know, a lot of people, Trumpers will dive into my Twitter and say, well, you don't know the numbers are real.

There's just no getting around it.

We have fucked this up like seven days and on Sunday.

We have to manage the apex of the relapse, whether it's an army of tracers, whether it's more vigilant testing, whether it's being the first to find and distribute a vaccine or a therapy.

Our chance to pull

a semi-dead rabbit out of the hat here will be how well or not well we manage the peak or the apex of the relapse.

And then long term, medium term, there's really, and again, we get a ton of, I'll get a ton of crap for this.

And people always say to me the same thing on pivot.

Stick to business, stay in your lane.

The branding event, the branding event for America that re-cements our position as the good guys and the good gals is simple.

Biden takes 42 of 50 states in November.

Everything about

the brand that has been eroded here that is wonderful about America, and that is empathy, generosity, courage, a comity of man,

a lack of strength.

You've got a good motto.

It's morning.

42 of 50.

How about it's morning in America?

It's morning again in America.

Anyone who's not, who's young will not know that's Ronald Reagan's.

I have a post, that poster.

It's morning.

And I thought that was so brilliant at the time.

I was in college.

I was like, whoa, do you remember that?

Yeah, all my friends are total.

I was

close to liking Reagan.

And I did, you know, the stuff he did around the age.

Everybody liked Reagan.

Well, the Age Crisis thing really soured me on him very badly because i was right in the middle of that but um

i i that was a great brand make america gradient is so obnoxious but it's morning in america was really so effective it was hopeful it was and so was obama's also um but i i people forget that it's morning in america so would it be like that would what would be the what what is the pivot what do we say now with a hundred percent less suckage like well i don't know i almost think like you could just draft off i think you just take the the maga and you just take uh you just

make make you just take make you gotta get away you take hold on all right just take the make and grade it out of it just call it America again oh and just oh

boom I just thought of this oh my gosh America again great

America again I Scott that's oh I can't stand it how I should do this for a living oh my god you're really smart you know I keep this up I'm gonna have a show on vice every time I'm gonna no one can find who is no one can find every time I go who is

on vice what's the point of being on vice if you can't drop that bomb what you're not allowed to curse what we cannot make a deal in which we cannot be bleeped okay let me let's just put that in our contract along with some other stuff we're going to ask for let's ask for

stuff okay so america again

you heard it here a a

well what do you think what do you think we do answer the kiwis is kiwi or a comment no i don't know i i used to call that chris liddell who now works at the white house used to be cfo and i he was fine when i used that what do you think how do you think we restore the brand america that's a delicious fruit by the way um

i

i i think we we pretend it didn't happen as we are so good at doing we pretend it didn't happen the pandemic or trump trump the whole thing just yeah 40 40 of 50 states right we screwed up we're correcting our mistake right not we're back not uh america again i like that i like that i'm trying to think but i think we we just act like it was a terrible nightmare the nightmare is over kind of thing.

And but say the word nightmare.

You know, something like time to dream.

You know, wake up, wake up from your nightmare.

It's time to dream.

Something like that.

How do you like that?

No?

Yes.

Yeah, sure.

That feels like.

I don't know.

How about all of us need to be one cell on the hand that bitch slaps that bigoted fucking weirdo?

How about that?

Will that go on a bumper sticker?

No.

Will that go on a bumper sticker?

No.

No.

I like America.

Again, I like it.

Let's go for it.

Hey, Derek from New Zealand.

It's all just all you want, but we come up with good advertising here.

I got to tell you.

But hello to Jacinda Ardarin.

I'd love her to have her on the podcast.

Thank you very much.

Will you ask her?

Thank you.

All right.

So, Scott, we're going to take one more quick break after that brilliance from you, and we'll be back for predictions.

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Scott, earlier this week, we talked about whether the government should temporarily ban mergers for big companies during the pandemic.

It's been discussed in Congress.

AOC and Elizabeth warren teamed up on a new bill proposing that since what we last spoke uh what else should listeners be ahead of the curve on predict something please i'm going to do a quick prediction before you start by the way so amc is feuding with universal studios that's the theater uh chain uh said it would ban uh their theater release after universal ceos the company plans to release more of its movies straight to streaming i think trolls was done uh there's all this anger among theater owners.

I feel like theater owners are just going to go there and eventually will own all these, these, will own all these chains.

You know, Disney will own a chain.

And I think they're just saying full steam ahead.

You mean the studio?

The studios will own the distribution.

Right.

But I think it's going to be full steam ahead on these releases and as people get used to them.

And too bad, AMC.

You're going to get bought.

And it's going to be just one more means of distribution.

And I think the government's going to let it happen because there's so many ways to watch movies now.

Thank you.

Well,

there's a lot there.

And that is if you look at companies that have added more than $100 billion in, say, a two or three-year period, they all have one thing in common, and that is they've made extraordinary investments in being vertical, whether it's Apple opening stores.

If you think about Facebook and Google, they manufacture, design, and distribute their products.

And it's only a matter of time before Disney and the major content players that have the capital go vertical.

And that is, you're right, they not only acquire AMC or iPic, they acquire Xbox handsets

or they require Roku.

So going vertical is key.

The other thing that's playing out here is that as when I was growing up, my dad's boss had a slightly bigger house, but was in the same neighborhood, and all of the kids went to the same place because he made twice what my dad made.

Now the CEO of a company no longer makes 20 to 30 times the average salary of an employee.

They make 300 to 400 times.

So there has been a marketplace shift and adaption or adaptation to

the extreme amount of wealth and the variance in the amount of money people have through extreme segmentation.

And I'll use two examples.

I'll come back to what I think is going to happen in movie theaters.

You used to go to Disneyland and it was $19.95 to get in.

And then you bought these stupid books of tickets.

An A ticket was for Lame Dumbo Ride and an E ticket was for Pirates of the Caribbean.

And then

you had to strategize and spend a ton of time thinking about, okay, does mom get to go on Pirates of the Caribbean or does she have to go on Bear Country Jamboree, which is only a D ticket.

And then slowly but surely, as wealth, as people, successful people were no longer

making millions, they were making tens of millions or hundreds of millions, they adapted and they said, okay, now we have FastPass.

And for an extra $20 or $30, you get to cut the line.

And then we had VIP tours, where for $5,000, you and eight people not only cut the line, you go in the employee entrance.

And if you just give the operator a hand signal, you get to ride it over and over and over again.

So they have segmented the shit out of this product such that they can attract and tap into extremely wealthy people.

The same thing is going to happen in movies, and that is within

12 to 24 months, you and me or anybody else are going to be able to watch the next installment of Star Wars for $250 at home seven days before it comes out in the theaters because there is a large population of wealthy people who will pay hundreds of dollars to watch the new minions.

at home in the comfort of their own home.

And the really sad thing about it is this, is that one of the things that was a blessing, I mean, a real blessing for me going to university high school in Santa Monica or West LA is there were kids a lot wealthier than me, and I developed aspiration.

It's like, okay, that kid's going to Stanford.

He's smarter and harder working than me, but he's not much smarter and harder working than me.

Maybe I could go to a good college.

And then there were kids a lot less fortunate than me.

And I remember developing a sense of kind of empathy for them.

And when we take the segmentation of our society and put everyone in their own weight class, it reduces a level of aspiration and confidence to the upside and reduces a level of empathy to the downside.

And what are we doing now?

We're going to take everyone out of movie theater.

People, income and demographic segments used to mix at movie theaters and now they're not going to.

I think people are just going to watch it at home.

No, I think there's going to be movie theaters.

And I would love Disney to run a movie theater because it would be a nice experience like Alamo Jackson.

You will not go back to a regular movie theater.

You'll go to Dragonflex.

That's segmentation.

You're wrong.

You'll go to Draft House or IPIC.

You won't go to a regular movie theater.

No, but I will go to movie theaters if they were even slightly innovative.

There has been no innovation in movie theater.

They're still ganky since I was a kid.

Well, that's it.

I pick.

Yeah.

They know.

I go to Alamo Draft House.

I actively go there.

I actively go there.

They're segmenting.

They're going, okay, you're not rich.

You go to a place with sticky floors.

Yeah, but it's not that much

price difference.

I'll tell you that.

The difference in ticket price at Alamo Draft is just you can eat there.

The price difference is not.

Oh, my gosh.

You're such a New York Times podcast elitist.

People can't.

95% of America cannot go to, afford to go to IPEC.

It's 25 bucks a seat.

It is not an Alamo draft house, but it's the food that they make the money on, I suspect.

It's less.

I'm just saying, ticket prices.

The dog loves taking his kids to a kid show in Disney drafts.

They take the prices down and make a great Disney.

Let me just say, as I know you haven't been on a Disney cruise, and I, Karis Wisher, have, let me just say.

What did you think of it?

I'm kind of interested.

I was trying to get Bob Iger to come to something, and he said I had to go on a cruise in order to do it.

I paid for it myself.

I went.

I asked it.

I thought it was flawless.

I hated every minute of it, but it was flawless.

The experience.

Yes.

And by the way, they had tiered people, had better rooms, had less better rooms.

That's a Titanic.

Right, exactly.

But the rooms at the less better people were great.

The food was fine.

It wasn't great, but it was good.

And I have to say, one thing they did, everybody got soft-served all the time.

It just was, even though I just was like dying inside, I could not deny the quality.

But I went to their like crazy

Disney.

It was I'm past that, though.

I'm more about, I want to go on a virgin cruise because I think I'll maybe have my first threesome with a bunch of hairdressers.

That's how I imagine a virgin cruise.

Isn't that you imagining a virgin?

No.

Hairdressers and the dog mixing it up a little bit.

Why would you, why would hairdressers talk to you?

I don't know.

All right.

So is that your prediction?

What is your prediction?

I consider that.

Oh, okay.

So I got a bunch.

All right.

All right.

Amazon.

And this is dangerous.

Amazon becomes the second most valuable company in the world this afternoon.

Zoom, we predicted last week was going to go down to $100.

It's already dropped from $170 to, I think, $170.

Oh, that was because of the Facebook, Google stuff.

Yeah.

And

you're going to see an absolute, we're going to see big tech go from 24% of the SP by the end of the year to 28% to 30% as the market wakes up from its consensual hallucination and absolutely throws up and tests new lows in the next 90 days.

But anyways, my real prediction is today, post-earnings, Amazon becomes the second most valuable company in the world.

That's a good one.

That's important.

And then we will see what they will do with that power.

And Jeff Bezos has made a lot of money in the past couple of months.

I'll tell you that.

What is he going to do with it?

He's going to Mars, apparently.

Yeah, no, he's doing what he should be doing.

He's not going to a movie theater.

I'll tell you.

No, no.

He could buy, he could, he could.

I was thinking about he could buy Paramount Pictures, he could, or Paramount, who owns Paramount Viacom.

Is that Viacom?

I think it's Viacom.

He could buy Ferrari.

Ferrari's $24 billion.

That would be a baller move to buy Ferrari in the midst of a midlife crisis.

Why?

That's insane.

because he can't that's even a because that's a lift for him that's a lift for him 24 billion awesome own a car company would you do that if you were him

of course you wouldn't do that if i were him of course you would i don't know i can't i'm gonna ask you a final question before we go what would you buy if you had left jeff bezo's level one thing what would you buy

Fox News and shut that shit down.

Oh, I like it.

Together we would do that.

That's exactly what I would do.

Actually, you couldn't do it because something else would just re-emerge.

Everyone's saying Bloomberg should buy it.

But oh, another prediction here.

I'm sorry.

Sonos is going to be acquired.

Oh,

the home.

The home is going to increase in importance for all of us with distancing and with work from home.

And we're going to invest more in our homes.

And the number, the most undervalued brand in the home that collides technology with leisure and entertainment is Sonos.

I love this.

I have them.

It's got great MPS scores.

It's got a great CEO there.

And my favorite thing is that.

And their founder is great.

We had Sonos at one of our All Things D conferences early on to debut them.

And it's been interesting.

They were also, can I tell a very quick story here?

They came to our All Things D conference, and we used to have a room we called the Science Fair where sponsors used to show off their stuff.

And they were showing off their first, their first thing had a little box with a wheel on it, if you remember,

the thing that controlled the Sonos device.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we had Steve Jobs that year.

And so we were walking, he wanted to see the science fair.

So Walt Mossberg and I were walking him around.

And John Earnhardt, I think that was the founder, CEO, was there and he was, he was a Steve Jobs fan, like you could not believe.

Just one of those, just like, I love Steve Jobs.

He is my God.

And Steve Jobs zeroed in on the Sonos display and he walked over to the guy and the guy's like, oh my God, I get to meet Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs pointed a finger at him and he goes, I'm going to sue you.

You have copied

the iPod with the wheel.

That is our wheel.

He started like, I'm going to sue you.

You jacket.

He was like amazing.

And he was a sponsor of of ours.

And, uh, and he walked away.

And, and I was like, thank you for sponsoring all things digital.

And he was thrilled to be screamed at by Steve Jobs, but it was a really interesting moment.

Yeah, Patrick Spence is the CEO there now.

He's very good.

It's a company that doesn't, it's, I mean, if you think about it, what other company has that kind of technology

in the home with a billion dollar market cap?

You're right.

Somebody's going to acquire it.

It might be a strange one.

It might be like a Samsung or something.

I like that.

Okay, I like that, Scott.

That this is

so full of information, this particular pivot, which just goes to show we are here for the long run.

We are going to keep making these fantastic insights.

We've gotten a lot of really nice tweets about people who are lifting their spirits in this time of woe.

And I know.

Oh, yeah.

What a thrill.

You're welcome.

You know what?

You're welcome.

You know what?

We are.

So just accept the love that is given to you by our fans.

Anyway, Scott, it's time to get out of here.

Don't forget, if there's a story in the news and you're curious about it and want to hear our opinion on, email us at pivot at boxmedia.com to be featured on the show and vote for pivot for the Webby Awards best business podcast.

We want to beat Reid Hoffman.

And if Masters of Scale wins, I'm not going to be happy about the situation.

Anyway, Scott, read us out.

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

Our executive producer is Erica Anderson.

Special thanks to Drew Burroughs and Rebecca Castro.

If you like what you heard, please hit the subscribe button or download wherever you find your podcast.

Join us at the beginning of next week.

It feels almost borderline optimistic, Kara.

We hope some of that optimism is creeping back into everyone's lives.

Stay safe, and we'll speak to you next week.