World Health Organization in the crosshairs, the robot revolution, Softbank's struggling Vision Fund and a big prediction: Amazon is going to be a $2 trillion company by 2020

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Well, you sound good this morning, Scott.

How's it going down there in Florida?

Well, you know, I've decided to really take stock of life and I've decided to change the way I approach life, Kara.

And I've I've taken the toaster setting down from five to three so I can stop and smell the roses

and just let life play out as it was meant to.

What point are you in the quarantine?

What point are you in the quarantine?

Are you like, oh, this is it?

This is what, this is my life now, or are you like, I shall not accept this?

What part?

I don't know.

I'm sort of at the point where I wish I could find one of those machines that can clone you so I could murder me and then kill myself.

I'm kind of at that point.

I've had it with this shit.

I don't know about you you.

oh you know what i'm fine i'm yeah no no daddy's not fine really

oh well what can i do

i want to i want to reach out

as uh vince rain vince rimps from i think pulp fiction said after getting raped in a basement i'm pretty far from fine

What can I do to help you?

That's what I got.

That's what I got to do.

You know what you got to do?

What?

You know what?

There's a couple things you can do.

First off, you can convince convince my kids to find the movies I enjoyed that I'm making that.

They can't stand it.

I wouldn't watch The Princess Bride.

They're just not into it.

I know, they aren't.

My son calls those old movies.

And I'm like, oh, they're from, like, I made him watch Analyze this this weekend.

With Billy Christian Robert DeNiro.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

He ended up liking it.

He was at first like, that's an old movie, but then ended up liking it.

And so I'm going to watch Analyze that now.

That's a great movie.

Go back to that movie.

That's a really fun movie.

I like Robert De Niro.

There's very few people that have this sort of academic or this sort of like industry kind of recognition and at the same time are such incredible whores.

If you put $10 at the end of it, he would literally be at Cats 2.

He would star in Cats 2 if there was a check at the end of it.

He'd still be one of the greatest actors of all time.

He is.

He is.

He is.

Someday I'll tell you my Robert De Niro story about Twitter.

You have a guess.

You dated in college.

No, I just, I told him not to use Twitter at a party.

Anyway, it's a good story.

I'll tell it to you some other time.

But listen, but you know who's having a good week?

joe biden in terms of getting endorsements he's got some real action going on as they say as the young people say

barack obama elizabeth warren bernie sanders and cardi b endorsed him and then stacey abrams told l magazine yes i would be honored to be biden's vice president i would be an excellent running mate as she's doing him um elizabeth warren said she'd be his running everyone says they'll be his running what you have been very hard on them let's you know we we get into lots of stories one of the things you did want to talk about this week was bernie dropping out let's talk about that briefly and then we'll get into the world health organization Your excellent call last week.

But let's first talk about this.

I mean, from a marketing point of view, what would you do if you were Joe Biden now?

Like you've got

anything.

Anything?

Anything.

Anything like what?

I want to know actual concrete things.

I don't want you to just yammer on and complain about them.

I want some actual.

I have just hired you, Scott Galloway.

I'm Joe Biden.

Sure.

I'm Sleepy Joe.

What do I, what do, what do you, what do you, I'll do whatever you say.

What would you advise him?

Uh, so you, you basically announced, not only do you announce announce your VP, but you announce your candidate.

And immediately following every

cabinet, you mean?

Absolutely.

Cabinet.

And after essentially following every bad news bears, B-league, oh, wait, I could be in the cabinet or these fucking Joey Bagadonuts can be in the cabinet.

Every time that the president does one of these, does one of these press conferences and that everyone puts their head in their hands and goes, Jesus Christ, no wonder everyone's dying here.

He does something similar with his team.

and that's the thing he he can pull together the team we all want right how can he get fauci over there he's got to drag fauci over there but go ahead keep going but he could he needs to respond he needs to get out of the basement he needs to start hold hosting his own his own meetings and he should speak he should introduce and wrap up you know 10 seconds on the front end 10 seconds on the back end and have other people he needs to basically start being the president oh i see providing providing a contrast to these ridiculous press conferences, I mean, where the president plays his own videos, where the president interrupts Dr.

Fauci,

and it'll absolutely drive President Trump crazy.

President Trump won't be able to not start insulting them, and they just need to, they need to immediately provide a contrast and leadership and confidence.

Would you think Cardi B should be press secretary?

I think that would work.

Cardi B is press secretary.

I think his press secretary should be Stephanie Roll.

I think his White House Communications Director should be.

Wow.

All right.

So name the cabinet.

I want to hear some of your cabinet names.

Go ahead.

You know, I think I would rather hear yours because I think mine are going to be

more predictable.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I think, I think Kamala, I think

Elizabeth Warren.

Yeah, I think Elizabeth Warren would probably make the best VP because I think she is she is, in my opinion, the smartest person in the intellectual thought leader of the Democratic Party right now.

I think you will probably pick Senator Harris because I think the bottom line is he owes the black community.

The black community is a big part of the economy.

Not Stacey Abrams.

Okay.

All right.

I don't think Stacey Abrams has that same attack kind of, I don't think she's an effective on the attack as Senator Harris.

Pretty good.

I don't agree with you, but go ahead.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think Senator Bennett would be a great Secretary of Education.

I don't know who he'd bring in

as potential to talk about economics or Treasury Secretary.

I'm trying to think who else was really strong.

I think Andrew Andrew Yang would be very interesting around something around treasury or commerce or, I don't know.

I'm trying to think who should be in charge of health and human services.

Maybe bring in,

I don't know, the governor from Michigan, I think has been very effective.

Okay.

Anyways, but that's sort of my, that's sort of my start.

Who do you think would be?

Well, I think you're right.

I think he should hold a press conference and actually out in the open, not in his basement.

Like, it shouldn't be in his basement.

But I think they're worried about him getting sick.

I think that's 100% 100% what's going on there.

But I think probably I would have it out, I would have a thing that I'd have every day.

I'd have the Joe show.

I'd call it the Joe Show or something like that.

And,

you know, ordinary Joe Show or something funny or sleepy Joe Show, morning Joe,

you know, something like that.

And I'd bring in guests.

I'd bring in different guests all the time.

I would show off a cabinet today.

And every day I'd make it like a TV show.

Like, today I'm going to introduce my Hells and Secretary.

Who knows it's going to be?

Ah, like make some excitement about it like he's not by nature an entertaining person that's the problem and you got to have someone who's just loves the limelight and so i think that's you know he could step out of the way but someone around him that loves doing the limelight shows and i would bring in like a like a any showrunner to do it like do it like a enter like a reality show i know it sounds crazy but uh you know get what's his name the guy who did Trump's shows it is a Democrat.

What's his name?

Mark Burnett.

Yeah, the guy who did all the reality TV.

Yeah, get him to do it.

Get one of them to do it.

It would be like, and he's actually a Democrat.

He's actually, you know, I would get him, I'd call him and say, I need your help, or someone from Hollywood, and do it like a show and have different outfits and have lift different memes.

Like, today I'm wearing this tie.

What do you think?

I'm an old sleepy Joe.

Like, I would lean into Sleepy Joe.

I would lean into like making fun of himself.

That kind of stuff.

I think it would be great.

Anyway, in any case, Joe, get on it or call us because we will make a circus out of your candidates.

Yeah, do something.

Yeah, like, and a good circus, like a smart circus.

Pull out George Clooney every now and then, like, bring in a big star kind of thing.

And actually bring them in on a private plane.

You know what I mean?

And if people say, oh, is it dangerous?

You know, like, you know what?

Got to live.

We're going all the safety things and we're doing all this stuff or pipe them in in a beautiful way.

Pipe Tom Hanks in for friggin' sake, you know, kind of thing.

Anyway,

my favorite line so far from this entire podcast and this week.

is a good circus.

Wait, hold on.

A good circus.

You know, bring in George Clooney.

Okay.

You know, you know what I'm saying.

Like, bring in some interesting.

Clooney makes any circus.

People need entertainment right now in a good way.

Like really good, like as counter programming to the shit show that is the Trump daily.

Let's have that Canadian guy.

Let's make it Cirque de Soleil Biden style.

Yes.

And then a little bit of those, you know, when they bend around each other.

You ever been to Cirque de Soleil when those two guys just bending?

Oh my God.

Have you met me?

That's like, do you do edibles?

And by the way, I do edibles and go to Cirque du Soleil.

That's true for real.

That's just for real.

That's just for real.

All right.

We usually start with one big story, but today I want to do something a little different.

As I've mentioned before, I've watched a lot of The Apprentice.

We can't just sit Trump down and shout, you're fired.

We can give him a review, though, on how he's handling the pandemic.

Shall we take a look at a few of his most recent and usually unfortunate choices?

We're going to make entertainment here.

All right, first, Trump blames World Health Organization for getting COVID wrong.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered his administration to defund the World Health Organization.

It's not clear that he can, which is part of the United Nations.

He said that WHO, which is created after World War II, is very China-centric.

In 2019, the United States contributed about $553 million to the World Health Organization's $6 billion budget.

The U.S.

is the organization's largest donor.

In response, Bill Gates tweeted, who has also given billions to the World Health Organization.

Halting funding to the World Health Organization during the World Health Crisis as dangerous as it sounds.

Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if their work is stopped, no other organization can replace them.

The world needs at who now more than ever.

Tell me, what is your review of this?

And why do you think this?

I want to know how you came up with that.

Oh, this was an easy one.

Whenever the president is facing a crisis of his own incompetence and his own making, his playbook, and it's been very effective, is to create another crisis within the crisis as a distraction.

And the ultimate crisis within a crisis from the president is to find a non-white or a foreigner to blame.

And the head of the WHO is non-white.

The World Health Organization is not American.

For the 90% of people in the United States that do not own a passport, they're unfortunately given in or they have a bias or a dangerous tendency to believe that foreigners, when they're under attack or when they don't like their lives, are responsible.

And he placed those very tribal, he placed our worst instincts.

And the WHO is international.

He doesn't like those things.

It feels European.

There's a guy with an accent

who's not from Norway, much less Michigan.

So they make the perfect target.

This was an easy one.

And he also signaled it.

He typically says something outrageous that everyone, we think everyone's going to freak out.

And then when his base doesn't freak out, whoever it is, whoever the most depraved person in his administration is, and that's, I mean, that's a real, you want to talk about a fight for the podium, whether Stephen Miller or someone else comes back and says, look at that.

They say, actually, this was playing well.

This is playing well in the press.

Defunding the World Health Organization.

And they do it.

And this is, and you know who loves this?

You know who absolutely loves America defunding the World Health Organization?

First and foremost, the virus.

Any enemy begins to win when they start atomizing their adversary.

And the way the virus atomizes us and is to divide in Congress.

And the idea that we're going to take the only organization that is

pan-European, pan, or just borderless, which is this virus.

This virus is borderless.

Yep.

And it's working on, it's working on AIDS, it's working on malaria, and

trying to defund them.

It's just, I mean, it's just so upset.

Yeah, and also it plays into the China issue.

I think a lot of people, and I think the press will now start like looking at China, which they shouldn't have been doing in the first place.

Nobody thinks China's any nice player.

Now, Trump himself was complimenting China until he stopped complimenting them, obviously.

And so I think what he's going to do is get the press press to like focus in on China.

There's an AP story that was disturbing, but no surprise to me.

I think, you know, how I rail against China and their behavior all the time.

But I mean, it's focusing the attention on China and not the incompetence also of the White House.

Two things could be, they're not mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination.

And so that's what's really effective.

Like, what would you say?

Is this effective?

This is effective.

It's working.

Oh, this is.

Yeah, but you'd like to think.

It's not working from a moral and

like, I think I'm 100% with Bill Gates.

This is dangerous, but it's it's something that he's doing this politically, yeah, politically.

It's probably a good move, it's probably a good move.

He's finding he's creating a distraction.

Look, this is this is the reality, and Americans don't want to believe this because we don't

want to look in the mirror and see the reflection right now.

The reality is, we had more time to prepare, we spend more money on health care, we have some of our best and brightest put on scrubs every day and go to work as doctors, and yet we

we have fucked this up so badly.

There's just no way to look at this and go, okay, how did we get this

wrong?

And so the president has to deflect and start blaming other people.

And now he can say the World Health Organization is responsible because they didn't report.

I mean, to a certain extent.

They didn't know that he didn't.

They didn't tell him.

And of course, he had a million other ways to know.

And there's some truth to the fact that China probably hasn't received the scrutiny it deserves.

If China had been more forthcoming, if they'd been more transparent, the World Health Organization can only work with the data they're given.

They're not an investigatory unit.

They don't confirm or validate or have spies on the ground to confirm information coming out of China.

They have to work with the information they're given.

And I think when

all of this comes out in the wash, we're going to find that the Chinese, a lot more people have died in China than they've reported.

the numbers they've reported are actually probably just

there's two sets of numbers there's the real numbers and what they're reporting.

And there's no doubt about it in situations like this, a certain level of transparency and honesty around data is hugely important, especially in the initial phases.

So, China, China, as a corrupt nation, which it is, and the leadership is corrupt there, we will find out that they, in fact,

stay true to that party line.

And we will not find it.

I don't think there's any way those numbers are accurate.

Anyways, but the World Health Organization, to blame them, all they're saying is, I know, let's take one organization that could help make progress against this and make sure that we don't have a relapse is much more likely now in the late fall by defunding the World Health Organization.

So great.

He's created a distraction from his own incompetence.

And as a result, we're likely going to have a more severe relapse globally.

I mean, I don't know if you've seen what's happening in Africa.

There was riots in food lines in Nairobi.

It just shows a total lack of...

empathy for man.

It's just so, I mean, it's getting to the point where these decisions are, they're just somewhat depraved.

And I was trying to find, I always try and say, okay, i'm a raging moderate which means i can see the other side and it just it disappoints me that more moderates

yeah it's just just getting so

i mean it's just getting kind of almost you're almost becoming numb to this stuff but well you're gonna see not you scott you're not numb

i'm not you're not you're not you're not look how ragey you are listen i was i was appreciating that bill gates who was never political almost never he didn't of course mention trump's name which he should have but that's all right i'll take it you know they've been giving a lot of money.

I had a lot of back and forth with people who are like, why are you listening to just a rich guy?

I'm like, this guy actually has expertise.

We need, you need to stop, you know, attacking the messenger.

He's 100% correct here, and he's right.

And of course, they've given a lot of money to the World Health Organization.

The line on him is that he wants to make vaccines and make more money.

That's what he's lining up to do.

This is not true.

Say more about that.

He's lining up what?

Well, that, you know, he's been pushing, he's building factories to make vaccines.

And their whole thing is he wants wants to make, you know, the anti-vax people who are just abominable as far as I'm concerned

is saying he's lining up to make money off of vaccines.

That's what he wants.

That's his endgame here.

I was like, he's the richest man in the world.

I feel like, no, I don't feel this is not a profit opportunity for Bill Gates.

This is not, I don't know.

Anyway,

the World Health Organization is about to become the new Planned Parenthood.

And that is,

unfortunately, it's going to become hugely politicized and it's going to become one of the largest recipients of billionaire democratic philanthropy.

You're going to see tech billionaires step into the void here and fund the World Health Organization, and it's going to make it such that the Republicans begin to hate the World Health Organization just the same way they've started to hate

Planned Parenthood.

Very good call.

All right.

Next, Trump announced a new business council to reopen the country, which was a disaster.

In a press conference, he read off a list of names of big CEOs in Wall Street, tech, sports, other industries who who would be part of that effort to restart the economy.

Names on the list included Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban.

It's not immediately clear if they agree, it's not not immediately clear, they didn't agree to be on the council, a lot of them, and how they would buy the president in what capacity.

They just put up the list of names and then told them later.

There's lots of reporting on that.

As a reminder, after Trump's big Rose Garden presser, at the start of the quarantine, he announced that Walmart would be making drive-through testing for COVID-19.

NPR reports that a total of eight drive-ins that he he described have been implemented.

Same thing with all the stuff he showed and his dog and pony show there.

Most of the things like these devices to do testing, they're not being used very much at all.

There's a lot of announcements and not a lot of vaporware, as they say in tech.

But I talked to a number of tech executives and they're like, we had no idea.

And then they sort of have to respond and be on these calls.

But most of the people on these calls were like, don't open the country.

This is ridiculous.

And testing is what's most important.

And so Trump didn't like what he heard on these.

And they said it was desperate.

It was a weird, desperate call.

It's very similar to those original business councils that Trump did, that everybody jumped off of in the beginning of the, of the,

uh, of the administration.

Remember those?

When he started doing crazy things, they all left.

What do you think about this?

What do you think of this business council thing?

What would you like to see?

It's not a worst idea in the world to consult business people, but the way he did it, of course, was hamhanded and disorganized.

What do you think, Nisa?

And Bill Gates wasn't on it, by the way, interestingly enough.

What do you think about this?

Yeah, but he's treating them like his PR team.

He wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tim Cook and Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and say that anything I say because they're sitting next to me makes it more valid because these are these are the heroes.

Anyone who's rich means they're smart is how he perceives himself and thinks other people perceive him.

So if I can get these guys to stand, if I can get Tim Cook to sit next to me, it means anything I say has more credibility.

And what he should be focusing on instead of some sort of photo opportunity is two things is leveraging the power of the private sector and our innovators for

testing.

The thing that reopens the country is to give people the confidence that we're actually, yeah, that we're actually getting testing, whether it's testing for immunities, whether it's testing super, super facile real-time testing around whether you have it.

And then the second thing is I don't understand why they're doing this.

I don't understand why they haven't hired up or scaled up two or three million people.

From what I understand, quite a few people are out of work and turned them into overnight into the world's largest organization that does one thing, and that's tracing.

And these are people using new technologies that would immediately, once someone gets an alert or once they're alerted after our incredibly robust system of hopefully testing gets ramped up, to do incredible contact tracing and notify people using new technologies.

I mean, it's testing and tracing.

So which is what every CEO, including the head of the bank of all of them, said it to him.

They did.

And he didn't like the new, he didn't like the information they were imparting.

Bezos apparently did.

They don't have anyone competent.

We should have, we should have the most, I mean, look at what France is doing.

France has totally mobilized their infrastructure.

They have makeshift emergency hospitals and transportation vehicles from the Teje Vay and from their aircraft carriers.

Their armed services have been brought to bear.

They should have,

there's incredible logistics with service people in the armed services.

Why hasn't Trump kind of weaponized them, if you will, or emboldened them to say, okay, here is the basic technology around testing.

It's going to get better every day.

And we need to take testing from X to 10X in the next 30 days.

Help us get there.

Instead, he's trying to convince the nation that I'm the one that should be able to decide if and when we open.

And what those tech executives should be doing is they should be getting together and say, okay, let's let's coordinate.

They should be having their own counsel.

And also they probably should be saying in as thoughtful a way, a non-confrontational way as possible, is that we look forward to the all-clear for when to go get back to work from our governors who are on the ground.

And Republicans either have to walk the walk around the importance of limited federal government.

And it's up to, they always want states' rights when it's around gun control or around family planning, which they never want to face.

And then when it comes to this, him pointing at his head and saying, I'm going to decide.

I do think that's something he'll lose on.

I think the government is going to stick up the middle finger and say, Sorry, boss, you're not deciding when we're going to.

Yeah, well, that's besides, that's obvious.

I think this, you're right around the PR elements of this, of this thing.

And I think they didn't bite.

I think they are very nervous about being used as like props in a show.

But what, you know, what's happening here is he's announcing things and then it has nothing to do.

You're saying, why doesn't he do something?

Because that's not, he just says things.

And then that's that.

That's the whole thing, which is what a TV show does.

Like, you don't actually create the things.

I was, I wrote a piece, I don't know know if you saw, about me testing myself for antibodies.

Um, I got a hold of one of these tests from someone I know, um, and and how useless underground, an underground kit, underground, underground kit, yeah, for now.

But, um, but I don't know, I don't know.

There's no like the FDA has sort of let these things go, like on the antibodies tests, and they have to really like, they, they just like anybody make them.

And there's a whole bunch pouring in from China and Korea that are apparently

crappy.

I usually read absolutely everything you write, but I didn't stop stopping.

I was negative.

It was negative, but but I had thought I had possibly had COVID-19 because I had a really weird bout of illness, but I didn't.

But I can't even get a test.

As you know, I like, I don't even know how to get a test.

And it's not easy to do so.

And you should walk into a drugstore and be able to get a test right there and know right there.

It's like,

it should be like a home pregnancy test.

It should be like, anyway, so I was got a lot of people wrote me.

And one person who was working was saying, you know, this, this, you could just dragoon these people to do them and make them and they would be out like that.

Like you just dragoon them.

You're not even dragoon saying, You're going to be making these tests, Abbott, or whatever.

And the Abbott is, and other companies are.

But you're right, the testing thing.

And I think all these CEOs, that was the message is we're not opening up until the science leads us there.

And until the science, until you do something about the science, we're not going to open our companies.

There's no way we're opening a Disney World.

We're not opening,

you know, this and that and this.

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

We'll come back to talk about SoftBank and also hear from a listener who's done something very interesting with AI and Scott Galloway.

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Okay, Scott, we're back.

Let's talk about our favorite things.

SoftBank is in trouble.

SoftBank warns investors that the value of its Vision Fund, Shakaroo, may have dropped by as much as $16.7 billion over the last year.

In a statement posted to its website, Vision Fund said it would record a loss of 1.8 trillion yen in the financial year that ended in March due to the deteriorating deteriorating market environment.

SoftBank has other areas of investment that will likely offset those losses, but this is the first annual loss in 15 years.

Of course, SoftBank issues started before COVID-19, way before, way when they backed WeWork and other companies that were kind of insane.

Last week, WeWork announced it is suing SoftBank for abandoning a $3 billion share buyout offer.

They say SoftBank made up reasons to back out of the plan as financial pressures mount and COVID-19 pandemic worsens.

In an interview with Forbes, Masio Shisan, the founder and CEO of SoftBank, said he expected 15 Vision Fund portfolio companies to fail.

But he said the long-term plan for the Vision Fund was unchanged.

Okay.

All right.

What is this the end of the Vision Fund?

I think it is.

I think most people I talk to think that in Silicon Valley.

We predicted this was over four months ago.

This was the walking dead.

And you got to imagine at some point their investors step in and say, all right, stop spending money on overhead, substantially reduce the staff of the general partners.

That is the people.

uh i mean that one guy i can't get over that one guy saw his job rajesh the guy who yeah whose background includes i think like losing billions of dollars at deutsche during the credit crisis and okay let's put him in charge but you're gonna have this is i don't want to say it's perfect for them but it's giving them cloud cover just to get the hell out of dodge yeah and this thing is over softbank is actually a great company They do really well.

They have fantastic, they have some fantastic assets.

Telco is a good place to be.

The merger of Sprint and T-Mobile

made a lot of sense in terms of scale and having a viable number three.

So this will give them the cloud cover they need to get out.

What's going to be interesting is just to watch this thing unwind when they don't have the drunk sailor showing up and feeding them more crack cocaine of cheap capital.

So I mean, there's companies like...

By that you mean the Saudis, although they don't drink.

Well,

SoftBank was doing these follow-on rounds, which were just ridiculous to companies that some great companies, Slack, there's some real good companies in the portfolio.

I think, I'm not even sure, I think, was SoftBank and Airbnb?

I can't remember.

I don't think so.

No, I don't think so.

And then, but

what's really going to be interesting is the next shoe to drop, I think, within the portfolio, other than just the crazy shit, like robots making pizza making robots, is their real estate stuff.

So, Oyo is already out of business.

They just don't know it yet.

That's going to be a disaster.

Trying to roll up budget hotels, overpaying, a 26-year-old running the company.

That's just stupid.

And then the next ones, you got to imagine that soft bank plus real estate in this economy the next ones we're going to hear more about um even despite the distraction from covet 19 will be compass and open door open door is i buying so they take they actually buy houses sight unseen using algorithms and then they fix them up and then sell them and it's an interesting idea creating more liquidity in real estate and taking a very inefficient process where

where you know Joan, your friend's wife,

shows up on a Sunday and sells your house, and then brokers take 5% of what is your most valuable asset.

I mean, there's just a lot of inefficiencies there.

But the problem is they now are sitting on inventory of houses that are going to be increasingly illiquid and likely go down in value.

So they have mismatched durations.

The same thing that happened to WeWork, where they basically buy long, they sign 10-year leases and then sell short.

That can, when the market turns against you, it's just vicious, right?

So you're going to start to hear more about Oyo, Compass, and Opendoor as companies, as distressed companies in the soft bank portfolio.

And they're not going to have

Uncle Masa to show up with his drunken checkbook.

They're going to get a lot more discerning around follow-on rounds.

Well, and I think the thing is, it's just they just were funding everything.

And I think they were doing things like competing, you know, competing.

They have some interesting one.

They have Byte Dance, which is interesting.

Kupang, Kupang Fanatics,

First Story.

They've got some interesting companies for sure, but some of them are in such.

They are not in Airbnb, by the way.

You're right.

They just have to just move along.

It just was the fact that they were doing this in this sort of strange way of

overfunding things or else

they would offer money to one group.

And then if they didn't go for it, they say, we're going to fund your...

your competitor like by a lot.

And so a lot of people did not.

I wrote several stories about that.

It was sort of this sort of, we're coming in with giant piles of money.

Screw you.

And so, you you know, this just, you know, this is what it's good to do.

They're reaping what they sowed, essentially.

Even their winners, though, they won't experience the type of IIR that typical BCs.

I mean, Sequoia Capital put, and Kleiner Perkins got 20%

of

Google for, I think, about $25 million in their Series B.

Whereas, and so the return there was, you know,

40,000%.

Whereas even the winners at SoftBank, because they came in and said, here's a billion at a pre of seven billion or something crazy or here's five hundred million at a pre of one and a half billion even their winners the irr will be will be good but it won't be exceptional so the returns here are just not going to be yeah they're very tough especially they're all over uh uh driving like with grab and all of them they're not just they're in dd they're in grab they're in cruise they're in get around they're in you know the all the they're in everything uber um but you know who it's going to benefit what the the vintage if you will of vc funds raised right now that will be deployed, not now, but in 21 and 22, will be some of the highest returning funds and asset classes in history.

Because what you're seeing is this great culling of startups.

And you're also seeing costs come way down and valuations come down.

And the largest source of stupid crack cocaine capital is about to leave the stage, meaning that they won't be competing against drunk uncle driving up valuations.

The best time to start a company is at the very, very depth of a recession.

And the best time to invest is at the depth of a recession.

And all these guys that have just have fortunate timing, all these VCs who have just raised big funds are about to pick up great companies and great startups at 40 to 60% off.

I don't know if you looked at the terms, the most recent terms on Airbnb.

That was a great piece of paper

for the VCs.

So the VCs who have just closed funds, the 21 and 22 vintages are going to have some of the highest returns in the history of the venture.

Good point.

All right.

Last one.

Sorry, because it has to do with you, too.

A court ruled Amazon operations shut down in France.

A court ruled that the company failed to protect warehouse workers against COVID-19.

Now, Amazon must restrict deliveries to food, hygiene, and medical products.

That impacts 10,000 workers.

They will get full pay during that time.

In a statement, Amazon said it was perplexed by the French court's decision and

the threatened fine was too high to risk for not complying.

Similar issues have risen in the U.S.

I doubt the U.S.

will do anything about it, but the pressure of COVID-19 push Amazon, will it push them to reconcile its tenuous relationship with workers?

They've been firing workers who complain here in the United States.

What do you think of this very briefly?

I mean, Amazon is doing a great job delivering, but at the same time, putting their workers at risk and not doing enough.

And although the question is,

is there anything they can do that's enough that doesn't end up in this situation?

Well, look, I just don't think there's any getting around it.

I think Amazon and Walmart are now becoming too big to fail in the sense that they are now, if you want to see a riot, if Amazon and Walmart, all of a sudden, if their supply chain was interrupted and they announced they were no longer able to deliver food or had to start closing stores, you would say your neighbors, you know, they'd be like, honey, grab the Glock or go into Publix.

You would start to see,

you could really see a panic.

And so those companies are playing probably in some ways a more important role than the federal government right now.

So I think what Amazon is doing is, I think it's a good thing that we have people that are smart enough, brave enough to put themselves in harm's way.

I think the difference here is that it's people who unfortunately weren't paid enough to make that decision.

They have to put themselves in harm's way because, quite frankly, they haven't made any money.

And that great line from the little prince: what is essential is invisible to the eye, our essential workers that we keep talking about.

They're then invisible to our eye.

And while we lean out our windows and applaud the healthcare workers as we should, are we really leaning out and applauding the essential workers who deliver our groceries

or put stuff in our back seat or run our sanitation trucks or have died in transit.

I think 41 transit workers have died in New York because the bottom line is

it's more really, it's a continuation of the war on the poor.

And that is we don't respect these people.

We don't have the same affection for them because we think of them as losers.

The difficult thing about a meritocracy or what we think is a meritocracy is that we believe billionaires deserve it and that we should idolize them.

And we believe

someone who is delivering your groceries at 14 bucks an hour, they fucked up because they deserved it.

They're not as smart.

They're not as good as the rest of the people.

And we're not leaning out our windows at 6 p.m.

to clap for these people.

And they become increasingly important.

So I'd like to see these warehouses be open.

I would just like to make it a real function of option and that you get danger pay.

Well, it's interesting.

You got to know what they're doing.

I mean, my, the Whole Foods near me just had a bunch of illnesses in it.

And I have to say, when I went in there, I've been in there several times, which I was like, oh, great.

This is not great.

They were, they did have gloves.

They did have masks.

They did, like, I wonder what's happening.

I mean, obviously this virus is going to get people sick no matter what, like it's going to get through, but I was sort of like, what there, there's, there's a, they obviously didn't respond quickly enough.

And the question is, what are they doing behind the scenes?

Because in front of the scenes, everybody's all as protected as I guess you can be.

But but it, it's, it, you wonder, like they have to be sort of, you know, what is it called?

Um, purer than Caesar's wife on these things.

Like you really have to go as far as you can.

But is there any,

doing these jobs is inherently like my brothers might get sick.

He's just going to like, there's a possibility.

And the question is, what do we do then?

What do we, you know, and France just shuts them, gives them a fine that just shuts them down, just completely just shuts down.

Shutting down is the only other, complete shutdown is the only way to protect them.

But healthcare workers, not that they're not heroes, but generally speaking, healthcare workers kind of take this oath.

And that is they get paid well, they have a lot of respect in our society, and they're heroic to sort of begin with.

And their general

viewpoint or their staff to the medical community is that they will put themselves in harm's way to help other people's health.

And I'm not saying we should take that for granted.

But for example, in the armed services, I remember my dad wanted me to go to Annapolis so he wouldn't have to pay for my college.

And I started seriously thinking about a career in the armed services.

And I remember reading about different careers and talking to people in the service.

And I said, if you become a submariner out of college, you can make like $50,000 a year.

Why?

Because you're in a metal tube with recirculated air and you literally don't surface sometimes for five or six months.

But they paid you so much money that you consider doing it.

And what we'd like to see in those warehouses amongst those essential workers, if you're a 25-year-old woman, the prospect of being infected is a different prospect than a 65-year-old man with diabetes.

It's just a different risk-adjusted threat.

And I think if a 25-year-old consciously decides that he or she is going to play a very important role and go to work in our food supply chain into a warehouse.

I don't think, I think that's worth that.

Our job is not to shut the warehouse down.

Our job is to make it worth it for those people going into that warehouse and pay them.

Yeah, just pay them a shit ton of money.

Make it such that A, you know if they get sick, they know if they get sick, we're going to take care of them.

And B, if they manage to get through this, we're going to pay them a shit ton of money.

They can do something much more.

creative here.

All right, so we're going to get into a listener question.

You're 100% right.

Okay, this one is a little different.

We have a software engineer named Zee Long Lee from Montreal.

He used AI to make a question in Scott's voice.

This AI bot does sound like Scott.

So here's the robot Scott's question.

You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail.

Karen Scott, I'm Robert Scott, and I'm a big fan of the show.

But my question today is, can the big tech go to another level and pull out a gangster move to replace essential workers with robot in order to protect them against the virus in the future?

Oh, wow, that's pretty good.

Let me read it just.

Can big tech go to another level and pull out a gangster move to replace essential workers with robots in order to protect them against the virus in the future?

Scott, that sounded like you.

That was crazy.

I didn't think that sounded.

I didn't feel, I didn't feel like just irresistibly attracted to that voice.

That voice did not sound loving and sexy.

It was a pretty good first effort.

I'm thinking of doing a show with that robot.

I think that robot would be just fine.

Anyway, it was really well done.

Yeah, it was a robot.

It was an AI voice of Scott.

That was a pretty close approximation of your voice.

That really, you know, I'm such a narcissist.

I didn't even listen to the question.

I just kept thinking, does this sound like me?

What do I sound like?

Do people love me?

Do people love me, girl?

The robot.

See, the robot will not care and will be much easier to deal with.

I think that's one of the pluses of a robot.

But, but talk about this idea of hasten the race for robots.

I talk, again, I talked about this Mark Cuban.

He thinks we need more robots.

Obviously, they're working on robots in China.

This would robots would solve the problem, except that we need to have people to have jobs.

But

so does that strengthen the case for robots?

Or does it, you know, are they putting robots in places like when they go into nuclear facilities that are blowing up, they send in robots, they send in robots.

They're going to be sending robots into mines to mine and everything.

Should, which, and here, which we couldn't have contemplated, this virus that allows us, which we could have contemplated, that's not true.

But it creates a situation: do we need more robots?

Scott?

Well, you know, this is going to, I mean, Andrew Yang talked about the need for,

he basically said that it's not immigrants taking jobs, it's robots.

So unless you're going to stop robots at the border, you're going to see a continued outsourcing of middle-class jobs or robots at the border.

Which border?

Well, he was making a joke that it's this notion you're stopping immigrants.

That's not who's taking the jobs.

It's not immigrants in factories, it's robots.

I don't think you can stop technology.

And what I think you can do is tax robots the same way we tax payroll taxes, such that you have money to reinvest and take care of people whose job.

I don't, I've always said this on boards when they're talking about whether or not,

that's right, Diddis Brook gets an idea, whether or not you fire employees or not, and we all sit around and pretend we give a shit.

And we all pretend that we're like thoughtful people and then decide to fire people.

The reality is, I don't think you can protect jobs.

You can protect people.

So the question is, all right, go to automation.

It does make sense to where you can automate.

There's a company called Okado that does automated picking and packing in grocery stores.

And I just looked up their stock.

I'm shocked it's not up more.

But yeah, there's going to be a rush to more robotics.

The question is, how do you protect the people whose jobs are displaced and either retrain them or give them enough money to find

something else?

But you also got to keep in mind, there are viruses that can shut down robots, right?

Robots and technology are absolutely not immune from viruses.

It's an entirely different set of pathogens, but they are, they too are immune.

But yeah, it's hard to imagine that robotics

doesn't accelerate.

I've always thought, though, at the end of the day, the most impressive processing power in the world is the processor between people's ears and the level of nuance.

Yeah.

You know, robots can't show courage.

They can't show ingenuity.

They have absolutely no intent.

So you got, you have,

I think still in moments of crisis, we thought by this time, according to Star Trek and, you know, Isaac Osborne

or that robots would be fighting our wars, right?

And that's just not true.

There's just nothing that can replace nuance and decision-making like the human brain and processing power still isn't there.

And they keep talking about the singularity when they, you know, you go to these conferences where they talk about the singularity that in 36 months, we're going to have robots doing all the shit for us.

And it just doesn't, it doesn't happen.

So I'm a little bit more.

I think it's an edge.

I'm not.

I think it's directionally going to happen.

I just do.

I just, it's direct.

They're already in manufacturing.

They're already lots more places than you and I are seeing in terms, especially, and especially robots combined with AI.

I just think it's inevitable.

I just don't, I don't,

it's like me and not driving cars.

It's, it's directionally correct, and it's just a question of when.

I don't, I think there's no question that robots will replace enormous amounts of jobs.

I think Andrew Yang was right.

I think it'll just, I think it'll surprise us where they come in, but in dangerous jobs, absolutely, no question, or some other way to do that.

But I think I use robots rather broadly, by the way.

Some of them are just single hands.

Some of them are like that look like robots.

They look like little square bot, little boxes and stuff like that.

And so, yeah, I just, I think, I think we always conceive of robots as these people walking around.

And that's not what I mean.

I think it's much more

widespread in terms of what a robot really is.

And, but no question.

And especially something like this.

Like, if I think I told you when I came back from the Beza, one of the warehouses, like, I was like, this isn't going to have people on it someday it's just the way it was going and the things i was seeing i was like this this is being designed for not having people here eventually the way it is and it made sense and robots were doing so many more things than the last time i was there and robots were doing so many more things than the time before so i you know if i was amazon i would absolutely do this even though it might be heartless i think i mean if you're sitting there from a and pencil same thing with uber i would absolutely have self-driving uh

self-driving cars.

I just, I don't know why you wouldn't as from a financial point of view.

Anyway, we're going to take one more quick break.

I'm not going to replace you with a robot, Scott.

I want the robots from Westworld.

I want Thandi Newton.

She is scorching hot.

Oh, my God.

Have you seen Westworld?

I can't watch it.

I told you that.

It's totally confusing.

It's completely confusing.

Oh,

you can't even try and follow the storyline.

You just got to sit back.

I can't even read it and understand it.

I was like, there was a story, like, here's for people who cannot follow this thing.

And I couldn't follow the

story trying to describe it.

I was like, what?

It was sort of like

the Bible at the beginning.

So and so begats, so and so begats.

So I was like, what?

What do you, what happened to, who are they talking about?

Like, literally, I just can't follow it.

Anyway, we're going to take one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, we're back.

Scott, your predictions have been spot on in recent years.

I think you're a robot.

That's what I think is happening.

You had the one about the World Health Organization and a few weeks ago you predicted that universities wouldn't reopen in the fall.

Now Boston University is the first school to say it will likely shutter until January 2021.

I think that's going to be followed by a lot of schools.

I think my son's going to be living at home in the fall.

I suspect I told him that.

He better start looking for a job.

But

what is your next prediction?

You're really doing well here.

So along the lines of, well, two,

the less important one is you're about to see gap years, you know, taking a year off between high school and college.

You're about to see that increase 2,000 to 3,000% this fall.

And that is, Kara Swisher is going to decide that her son, he can either go to this, we don't know what it's going to be at the grade schools your son has been admitted to, and for orient some sort of weird, strange orientation, and then do a bunch of bad Zoom classes, which will not be worth the $58,000.

So you'll decide, all right.

And by the way,

decided.

Gap years.

It has been decided.

decided gap years uh when someone takes a gap year 90 of them end up going back they do in fact nine out of ten do in fact enroll in college it's not like they join a rock band and leave forever two they end up graduating at higher rates with higher gpas i also think it's a great idea for young men because i think an 18 year old man is still a boy boys don't mature as fast and i think that if you're like me and you're 17 and you show up to ucla you just don't have the emotional uh or mental capacity to deal with college and you end up just smoking a shit ton of pot and watching the Planet of the Apes trilogy over and over.

So I think we're going to see gap ears absolutely explode, but that's not my prediction.

My prediction is by the end of 2020, Amazon is the first $2 trillion market capitalization company.

It's just hard to imagine.

If you look at big tech.

Holy Henry Blodgett, really?

Tell me more.

Tell me more.

Well, think about big tech.

First off, big tech has gone from 21% of the NASDAQ to 24% just in the last 30 days.

You have every media company is going to be picked dry of their best talent by Google and Facebook, who have increased their hiring as they see weakness.

You're going to have a severe downturn in media spending and revenues at Google and Facebook, but their recovery will be what President Trump is hoping for the large economy.

Their recovery will, in fact, be a V shape, whereas the recovery for every other media company is going to look like a chair.

It's going to be an L, and then it's going to go down again.

And it's going to be, Google and Facebook have been weakening, if you will,

these media industry.

And COVID came in and it's going to finish them off.

Apple, Apple is probably overvalued right now.

It got recast from a PE of 12 to 24 for no real reason.

It's hard to believe that people won't slow down or put off buying that $1,400 phone, even though they're well-positioned, even though they have Apple TV Plus, even though the AirPods are the most innovative product.

But the company that is going to come out of this is literally going to grow through this, is going to run through the tape and start running a marathon after the 400 meter of the COVID is Amazon.

How do they not come out of this with so much momentum?

And in the markets, you're going to have people go, okay,

why wouldn't I just buy Amazon?

Why wouldn't I just buy Amazon?

So you're going to see Amazon.

Amazon is already up.

Amazon has already,

I mean, think about this.

I'm stuck at home playing with my toaster and starting to hate my children.

And Jeff Bezos gets his divorce paid for in the last 30 days.

That's what's happened.

He's increased his wealth about $35 billion in the last 30 days.

I think you're spot on.

So you have Amazon coming out of this stronger, and you have, they're going to have the confidence to start making more and more overt, explicit announcements about health care.

They're going to be the ones that kind of drive more automated real-time testing.

And everyone's just going to throw in the towel, investors, the government, consumers, and go all in on Amazon.

Amazon's first $2 trillion company by end of 2020.

I'm going to add to your prediction, which I think is spot on, with the idea that it's not going to be just Amazon.

I think you're right.

You saw a story in the Times this week about Google and Facebook sort of losing out financially from the advertising.

They're also getting hit, but I think they're coming right back in a bit.

And they are hiring, they are hiring people.

And so that's really, and I think, and they're going to hire a lot of people that don't want to go back that or feel like they're going to have to, which is not a good thing.

I don't think that's ever good.

It's like, oh, I'm going to go here because it's safe.

That's sort of like marrying the person you didn't want to marry.

You know what I mean?

Like, oh, I'll go with this person because they're a good provider.

But I think that that's a problem for later on down the line, but I think.

You just described my two wives.

He's so strange, but I heard he's successful.

He's a good provider.

He's a good provider.

Good provider is not something you want to be called necessarily.

Although it's not a bad thing.

But I think you're right.

I think it's not just Amazon, but I think all, as we've talked about before, I think big tech is going to come back stronger than ever, all of them.

Look at what's happening.

You know what's happening here google and facebook are calling condones just furloughed people viacom's furloughing people westwood and art heart radio are are are are firing at furloughing people and google and facebook are going to call well you can go home you can take 60 of your pay there they've identified the five percent the best five percent at all these firms who have the best relationships who are really good and they call them said how'd you like to get a raise during furlough Come to Google on Monday.

So nobody at old media is getting a raise right now unless the ones that go to Google and Facebook.

And these guys are going to play offense.

They're going to increase.

That's what I've been doing.

They're going to increase their hiring.

And what this also, what it gives advertisers, what happens is it gives them an opportunity to break bad habits.

And quite frankly, traditional media or terrestrial media is a bad habit.

And they have great relationships with these companies.

The primary competence of old media is they hire an incredibly, exceptionally high EQ person to establish relationships with the person at AB and Bev that's in charge of the budget.

And they take them out and they're nice to to them, and they give them fake awards to say, you're such a great CMO because you continue to waste a bunch of money at Viacom.

And all those people are going to rethink their media budgets, and they're probably not going to come back to the same levels they were pre-COVID.

But the mix will be, again, much more towards Facebook and Google and digital.

It's going to be a V.

These companies are going to snap back really fast.

I think about pushback.

I think the top ones will do fine in media, the ones that are high-quality things.

I don't think everyone's going to suffer at the same level.

You're right.

Well, there's a bunch of organizations.

There's a bunch of media organizations that are, that I think people, people flee towards quality.

I do think that's the case.

And I think that's the issue.

But, you know, and guess who owns the Washington Post?

Jeff Bezos.

Well, you know, you know, it's a decent survivability index across media is you just, all you need to do is look at the percentage of revenues they get from subscription.

So Viacom, almost nothing.

They get, they get their kicked in the nuts.

New York Times, 68% of revenues now from subscription, recurring revenue.

So their advertising can get cut in half, and they still have money to pay care of Swishers.

He was already writing these articles.

Yeah, they're fantastic articles, by the way.

And you should try to invest in our relationship by reading some of my work.

I read all your new articles.

Now you're stealing my terms, investing in our relationship.

I just want to say, I listen to all your little rants that go on.

I respond to your texts.

Do you read New Mercy to New Malice every week?

Yes, yes, yes.

Well, no, I watch your videos.

I watch your videos.

I watch your fights with people online.

I watch your responses i i watch you very carefully you're the fighter online you're much better at it than me i know but you get it you get in there no you get in there you just get offended when you say something and people call you on it i i don't know why i think you should say yeah i'm gonna double down on this that's what you hate that about myself i hate that yeah you do you're like i think the jack dorsey thing bothered you now what do you think of him i think that really upset you you i'm glad you stuck to your guns on that how dare you question the dog i know you do you get very offended when people question the dog i love it I'm like, oh, really?

I'll just, you know, let me ask you.

And by the way, I have a question.

All these new studies of, and thank you, Rita Wilson, for hydroxychloroquine.

I was like strafed by those idiots.

They're like, it's the only thing.

And I'm like, well, I think it's very good to be wary.

And then Rita Wilson talked about how it didn't help her.

And same thing with this doctor in Seattle.

Other things did.

And I'm not open to it, but you have to just be like, stick to your friggin' guns.

That's what I said.

But I try to be, you know, speaking of sticking to your guns, something I did learn about, I did put out it in Twitter, I put out a tweet saying, all right, wet markets,

a lot of these pandemics seem to have originated from bats.

Should we think about purposely and thoughtfully reducing the bat population?

Oh, my God.

Do you know how many bat people are out there?

There's a lot of bat people.

I could have told you that.

Call me before you do a

seriously.

I got such pushback, but I got to be honest.

Bats are important.

It was really thoughtful pushback.

And I got a bunch of emails from these.

There are women, and it's usually women for some reason, that work at these bat rehab centers or bat.

And they wrote these really thoughtful articles around how important a role bats play in the ecosystem, including, including maintaining

the population or reducing the population of what is the most dangerous animal in the world, which is, no, not rats, mosquitoes.

Oh, yeah, that's it.

They eat something like 2,000 mosquitoes a day, which are responsible.

Bats are important.

I knew that.

Why did I know that bats are important?

I didn't didn't know that.

Bats are important.

Bats are not rats.

Bats are not.

So I take it back.

I just want to say publicly.

I take it back.

The problem is when people get a hold of them and do bad things to bats.

That's what we're the problem, not the bats.

That is the problem on this planet.

It's not bats.

You know, rats, I would say, not good.

Rats, not good.

We're like rats.

We're the rats of

anyway.

You know what I'm saying?

Anyway, I want to apologize to the bat community.

How dare you.

And Twitter has educated me.

I was wrong.

Bats are important.

Leave the bats alone.

Leave the bats alone.

And please stop sending me emails, you crazy bad people.

All you bad people, I want you to keep writing, Scott, about the efficacy of bats.

I want as many emails as possible this week to Scott about.

Well, you know the stereotype of people.

And then, by the way, bee people, all the bee people that are fans of ours, please write them about bees.

That would be great, too.

I've never said anything.

But you know how cat people.

I just want you to get all this information.

There's a stereotype of cliché of cat people being a woman who's in her 50s who lives and dies alone.

The cat people to the cat people is bat people.

These are strange people who are obviously living alone and not getting out enough because they are coming out of the woodwork to talk to me about the importance of bats.

Anyways, I am wrong.

I would draw the comment.

I have been educated.

Bats are important.

Please stop sending me emails.

Send more.

Send more.

Send more.

Anyway, Scott, it's time to go.

What are you doing this weekend?

I hear Florida.

The same wrestling thing I did last weekend.

What are you doing?

I know, but wrestling is now an essential business.

Linda McMahon's short stint with the Trump administration paid off.

I mean, honestly,

you need to get to a wrestling church is considered essential.

You know what?

When a bunch of people in Florida decide to go to church on Sundays, I'd rather go to wrestling.

When a bunch of Floridians decide to go to a church service on Sunday in the middle of a pandemic, that's what I call Darwin.

They should be wiped out.

Oh, no, no, that's going to get to a lot of letters.

There you go.

That's your letters for this week.

That's literally,

that's just evolution.

That's natural.

It's not Sunday services.

It's natural selection.

It's not really stopping you.

I'm just natural selection.

Okay, it's done.

You're going to get dozens of I'm David in the blood of Christ emails.

Good luck with that.

Anyway, don't forget if there's a story in the news and you're curious about it and want to hear our opinion, especially if you're an AI

bot wanting to be Scott Galloway, we're very welcome to that.

Email us at pivot at Voxmedia.com to be insured

Okay, Scott, read us out.

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